"Find something difficult to do and do it," says Destroyer's Dan Bejar a few tracks into Streethawk: A Seduction. Which is more or less the story of Bejar's early albums, now reissued-- City of Daughters, Thief, and Streethawk. In a few years, the tentative bedroom auteur grew into one of indie rock's most distinctive voices, and these three records laid the groundwork for his career. The extravagant glam-pop that would become Bejar's trademark is hinted at, whittled down, and then perfected over the course of these albums. Every record since Streethawk has felt like either an extension of its successes or an outright rejection of its excesses.
City of Daughters found Bejar playing with others for the first time, but it's still plenty homespun; its songs are rough around the edges and not always sure what to do with themselves. Most of these tracks are simple and occasionally quite direct, but with less drama and fewer of the flashes of brilliance Bejar's often built songs from and around. Still finding his voice as a singer, Bejar alternates between sounding meek and going in just a tad harder than the songs seem to deserve. The wordiness that would become something of a trademark is in full effect, but he was only just starting to get the sloganeering thing down; unlike much of what came later, not every line is worthy of examination.
His work with the band, too, results in some fairly perfunctory arrangements; in hindsight, it's easy to see where a big crescendo might have gone had they had the means to pull one off at the time. The bouncy synth-pop breakdown in "The Space Race" is the first real evidence of his penchant for throwing a lot of unexpected elements into a song and making them stick. But the most successful tune here is one of its most bare; "You Were So Cruel" describes some manner of abuse, and while the specifics aren't crystal clear, Bejar's delivery is devastating. A good writer can explain themselves in any number of words; a great writer needs only a couple. With a few dozen words, the song drags you through about as many emotions. It's possibly his first masterpiece, though more would follow.
Thief, originally issued in mono, benefits the most from remastering. It's Bejar's first stab at matching his grandiose, idiosyncratic vision to a showier sound, and it's never sounded better. It's also the first Destroyer LP to feature a full band on every track, and it displays a far better understanding of how its moving parts should fit together than the more fleshed-out numbers on Daughters. It's more patient, more deliberate, and much more confident; the singing improves vastly, and the songs cease feeling like vehicles for spitting out lyrics.
All the hallmarks of Destroyer as we know them now are here: Rousing instrumental passages, lots of la-da-da's, effusive underlining of key phrases. But the sense of drama-- that teetering-on-the-brink feeling that marks his best stuff-- only occasionally rears its head; he still seemed to be getting comfortable having other people around, and there are times when the band seems to be playing him, rather than the other way around. As much as Destroyer is about excess, Thief sometimes bites off more than Bejar could chew at that point, and the duller bits obscure the moments of graceful abandon.
But then there's Streethawk, a record of practically nothing but graceful abandon. Each line seems immaculately crafted, every note falling into perfect order, every word sung with the proper bite and bile. This is what Bejar was building to, why he became a songwriter in the first place, and he reaches quite a precipice. Songs move effortlessly between bits of received wisdom, the drama is amped up to almost unthinkable levels, and these tunes feel like a long series of exclamation points. The guy got really good really fast, and he knew it-- his wit is sharp, his observations are keen, and his gaze is withering.
Bejar's pop songcraft gets a real shot in the arm here; instead of burying his best lines in verses, he builds his rave-ups around them, and the songs feel like a series of unlikely peaks that, in less able hands, would topple in seconds. You could study this music at academy; you can also pump a fist to it. It can at first feel overwhelming or overstuffed, but the salty poetry and barrage of hooks eventually starts to make its own kind of sense; beyond brimming over with ideas, if it's got a flaw, it's that it wasn't issued with a glossary. This is the payoff for years of head-down dedication to craft-- all these monstrous choruses and anthems-to-be; all those difficult years of working and reworking to make himself a better songwriter until, finally, he was one of the best we've got. He still is.
