View Larger
Rate it!
Avg: 4.0 (451 ratings)
- Date Released: February 21, 2006
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Indie Rock, Alternative Experimental
- Label: Merge Records
Heavy with rock history and disgusted with the underground.
-
We Say...
Dan Bejar, the driving force behind the Vancouver group Destroyer and occasional New Pornographer, has since 1996 built a career defined by eccentricity. Occasionally, his willful absurdism leads to aggravating dead ends. His 2004 record, Your Blues, was almost giddily difficult, the kind of record that delighted in its own artiness but never quite transcended it.
Not so Destroyer's Rubies. The seventh and best Destroyer record, Rubies is as heavy with rock history as it is disgusted with the underground, a record that offers both ease of access and stockpiles of mystery. Before the album's nine-minute opening salvo is over, Bejar has referenced Otis Redding, "Golden Slumbers" and his own back catalog, his delivery alternately rushed and hesitant. From that point on, Rubies is a dizzying trip, a record that is both fat with facts and is also the perfect mirror of an age weary and bloated from instant access to vats of questionable knowledge.
Musically, Rubies is loose and ramshackle, the elements sounding thrown together almost by chance. Piano melodies stumble drunk around slack guitar noodling and groaning saxophone. Bejar initially fumbles the signature riff of "3000 Flowers," but tightens it with each pass until the song explodes in a wild, triumphant crescendo. The loose barroom ballad "European Oils" is locked in a steady pattern of swelling and subsiding and the punchdrunk waltz "Looter's Follies" peaks with a ghostly choir bellowing from the shadows.
The songs are stuffed with countless coy allusions to other albums, but they never feel arch or smug or deliberately clever. When Bejar duplicates the stammering guitar solo from Neil Young's "Down by the River," it's not so much snide cribbing as loving homage. He calls into question the tendency among music lovers to seek out messianic figures (at one point he has the American Underground sitting "cross-legged….much like churchgoers"), yet can barely contain his own fanaticism.
There are so many layers of text and subtext and meta-text a person with enough time and wherewithal could probably use the record as the basis for a graduate thesis. As it is, though, Destroyer's Rubies is both majestic and rewarding. "Some situations need redressing/ And some songs just go 'Testing, Testing,'" he sings. It's this middle ground between meaning and emptiness that Rubies occupies. Trying to separate one from the other is just one of its many charms. -
They Say...
Supporters of Destroyer mastermind Dan Bejar have been regaled with enough material over the previous two years to keep even the smallest fan site busy. Between the New Pornographers' 2005 Bejar-heavy Twin Cinema and the Destroyer/Frog Eyes EP Notorious Lightning and Other Works, the hyper-literate, Bowie-loving Canadian has been on a roll. Destroyer's Rubies, his fifth full-length offering, is an amalgam of Streethawk: A Seduction's glam rock posturing, This Night's guitar-heavy psychedelia, and Your Blues' apocalyptic wordplay. Bejar's imagery is as impenetrable and volatile as ever -- "Dueling cyclones jackknife/They got eyes for your wife and the blood that lives in her heart" -- but musically, he's forged a solid enough foundation to ground it. Part of Bejar's charm comes from his innate ability to balance sadistic verse, music geek grandstanding, and bawdy refrains with enough major seventh chords to score a full season of Brady Bunch segues -- "A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point"'s pre-chorus crescendo declares "Those who love Zeppelin will eventually betray Floyd/I cast off those couplets in honor of the void" before exploding into "I pictured heaven on earth made of clay, as your form dictated." Rubies is heavy on pop craft, with standout cuts like "European Oils," "3000 Flowers," and the manic title track echoing 2005's "Broken Breads" and "Streets of Fire," but it's more than just the art-house theater to the Pornographers' Twin Cinema, it's the absinthe-drunk projectionist reveling in the sheer hedonism of it all.
“ The indie iTunes — Hardcore music fans are migrating to eMusic, the iTunes Music Store's cheaper, cooler cousin.”
Rolling Stone
eMusic Tip
Paid downloads are counted towards an album discount but free downloads are not.
COMPLETE FOR FREE!
You can download the rest of the tracks from this album for free! Just click the Complete Album button.
We’re sorry this album can only be downloaded using paid subscription download credits.
We recommend you Save it for Later by clicking the Save for Later button shown just above this message. For a list of related albums you can download right now, check out these recommendations.
| 01. |  |
Rubies |
9:25 |
|
| 02. | |
Your Blood |
4:15 |
|
| 03. | |
European Oils |
4:54 |
|
| 04. | |
Painter in Your Pocket |
4:10 |
|
| 05. | |
Looter's Follies |
7:26 |
|
| 06. | |
3000 Flowers |
3:46 |
|
| 07. | |
A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point |
6:02 |
|
| 08. | |
Priest's Knees |
3:08 |
|
| 09. | |
Watercolours Into the Ocean |
4:46 |
|
| 10. | |
Sick Priest Learns to Last Forever |
5:53 |
|
10 Total Tracks, 53:45 Total Length
Loading...
Playlists If you like Destroyer, check out these member playlists
Explore music recommended by Destroyer fans
Credits
- Martin Hall - ? // Lyle Hysen - Video // Daniel Bejar - Guitar (Acoustic) // Daniel Bejar - Guitar // Daniel Bejar - Guitar (Rhythm) // Daniel Bejar - Tambourine // Daniel Bejar - Vocals // Daniel Bejar - Group Member // JC/DC - Producer // JC/DC - Engineer // JC/DC - Mixing // Fisher Rose - Trumpet // Fisher Rose - Vibraphone // Fisher Rose - Group Member // Jamie Sitar - Mastering // Scott Morgan - Drums // Scott Morgan - Saxophone // Scott Morgan - Sax (Baritone) // Scott Morgan - Group Member // John Collins - Vibraphone // John Collins - Shaker // Ted Bois - Organ // Ted Bois - Piano // Ted Bois - Keyboards // Ted Bois - Photography // Ted Bois - Wurlitzer // Ted Bois - Group Member // Paul Cardillo - Marketing Coordinator // Nicolas Bragg - Guitar (Acoustic) // Nicolas Bragg - Guitar // Nicolas Bragg - Group Member // Ali Giampino - Booking // Tim Loewen - Bass // Tim Loewen - Guitar (Bass) // Tim Loewen - Guitar (Electric) // Tim Loewen - Vocals (Background) // Tim Loewen - Group Member // Christina Rentz - Radio // Maggie Fost - Design // Sydney Hermant - Photography // Tara Rudnikas - Cover Photo
Choose from over 6 million
music downloadseMusic features legendary and emerging artists in every genre: classic rock to classical,indie to international, soundtracks to spiritual, jazz to country and many more.
MP3 downloads work on any digital media player
With eMusic, you OWN your music without any restrictions. Burn music to a CD, play it on your computer, mobile phone or any digital media player - including iPod®, Zune® and Walkman®.
Songs available for 50¢ or less
eMusic subscriptions start at just $11.99 a month for 24 downloads - that's just 50¢ per song! And it gets better from there - our plans go as low as 42¢ per song!
Music Discovery
eMusic is about discovery. We make finding new music fun again with music recommendations from our award-winning team of music experts, member playlists and new music features.
Cancel anytime
With all the great music and site features we're pretty sure you will love eMusic. If not, no problem. You can cancel at any time and keep the music you have downloaded.
© 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC