ken is a subtle masterpiece that brings out emotion and beauty for a record that truly feels sublime.
ken isn't a nostalgic album. Instead Destroyer borrows a romantic sense of doom from New Order without romanticizing the music or the time and comfortably works it into Bejar’s own aesthetic, one that is equal measures unhinged and detached, urbane and sensuous.
ken’s a grower. It’s not going to immediately colonise one’s affections in the way the best Destroyer records do, but it will slowly get there, even if some will immediately dismiss it as a supposedly 'weak entry' in the Destroyer catalogue.
Ken isn’t quite as cohesive as 2011’s outstanding breakthrough, Kaputt, but makes another fine addition to the canon.
ken does share some cosmetic similarities with Kaputt, but where that album was airy and intricate, full of multi-instrument melodic lines constantly intertwining in a spacious sonic playground, this one is much less reliant on band dynamics. The album is murky and claustrophobic but still consistently melodic.
With ken, he has once again delivered an excellent record that offers both sonic surprises and familiar idiosyncrasies.
This album scales back significantly from the relative bombast of Destroyer's grand Poison Season in favor of a more intimate, simple setting. Stranding himself nearly alone – aside from longtime collaborator Josh Wells – Bejar hunkered down to record the simultaneously unconcerned and emotional splash that is Ken.
Comfortably surpassing Poison Season, ken is hugely listenable throughout, and with so many ‘80s touchpoints in evidence, it often sounds like it could actually have been made at that time.
Like one of Lynch’s filmic worlds, ken is elegant and perverse, a reflection on where we came from, and the unbelievable place we seem to have ended up.
Overall, ken is one of Destroyer’s most accessible albums. It features nary a song over six minutes and several under three, its sounds are compact and crisp, and its arrangements are clever and cohesive.
While the band’s last three releases in this mode—the Bay Of Pigs EP, Kaputt, and Poison Season—saw a consistent growth in their confidence and vibrancy, they’ve all shared a lushness that made them immediately warm and enveloping. Ken is a far more distant album.
Over the course of the album ... his mannered delivery grates, turning Ken, with two notable exceptions (Tinseltown Swimming in Blood; Saw You at the Hospital), into a twisted strain of cabaret.
Sadly, half of the album sounds like he’s on autopilot and despite trying to make ken a concise listen, it drags.
Rather than doing a lot with a little, ken is just… little.
Destroyer's latest record is an awkward helping of new wave pastiche.
Ken is one of the easiest destroyer records to just throw on, and while it doesn’t have a big number of the most essential destroyer tracks, it is deeply consistent. Tinseltown, sky’s great and catwalk are standouts, but the rest are great, just not exceptional perhaps.
I can’t tell if Dan is indulging my romantic ideas of a snooty upper-class Europe or he’s unearthing them.
After “trouble in dreams” Dan Bejar admitted to feeling embarrassed about performing his garish rock songs live to an audience who were half his age which is partly the reason why after that album Dan transformed himself into an artsy vagrant, waltzing his way through land and time to set up shop for one album only before wandering off somewhere else. First he ... read more
1 | Sky’s Grey 4:05 | 96 |
2 | In the Morning 3:16 | 90 |
3 | Tinseltown Swimming in Blood 4:46 | 98 |
4 | Cover From the Sun 2:13 | 75 |
5 | Saw You at the Hospital 3:30 | 77 |
6 | A Light Travels Down the Catwalk 3:07 | 84 |
7 | Rome 5:01 | 89 |
8 | Sometimes in the World 2:34 | 92 |
9 | Ivory Coast 4:48 | 80 |
10 | Stay Lost 2:21 | 88 |
11 | La Regle du Jeu 4:01 | 82 |
#16 | / | SPIN |
#75 | / | Under the Radar |
#78 | / | Drowned in Sound |
/ | Slate |