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CRITIC REVIEWS
90
In essence, no flaws and quite a few high points here, the opener “Crimson Tide” one of them.
85
Despite the few moments where Bejar lulls the listener into an apathy paralysis, Have We Met is one of the strongest albums in Destroyer’s fruitful career.
85
If you’ve enjoyed anything Dan Bejar has done under the Destroyer moniker, you’ll love Have We Met. If you’ve never heard a Destroyer album before, you’ll probably love it too.
85
On his masterful new album, Dan Bejar moves like a ghost through his familiar and inscrutable universe.
83
Have We Met, though perhaps less ambitious than Destroyer’s best work, is nevertheless their freshest and most enjoyable record in years.
80
Not unlike his lyrics—which are the most layered and entertaining they’ve been in years, both dark and funny—the resulting music is as vexing and strange as it is comforting and familiar.
80
Even at their poppiest, Destroyer remain an acquired taste. This time around, it’s one more than worth acquiring.
80
Even after more than 20 years of recordings, Bejar remains a delightfully unpredictable and inscrutable writer.
80
Dan Bejar's latest electro album offers a sharp, dark look at the world today – and he put himself in the firing line.
80
With a dozen albums under his belt, Bejar is known for reinventing himself and setting new sonic parameters from album to album. Have We Met is another new departure, yet it still has that familiar strange storytelling swagger that’s at the heart of Destroyer.
80
Dan Bejar seems omnipresent on Destroyer's first album of the 2020s, moving through the arrangements at his own whim.
80
With time, the record reveals itself to be one of considerable depth and feeling. It’s elusive, but worth giving yourself over to.
80
Have We Met is nearly impossible to want to exit once you’ve started to mentally map its sounds.
80
It's only after several listens that the album's wholeness clarifies. Because the tracks tend to be downtempo, reflective, and downright sleepy, it takes time and patience to realize Bejar is working like a good storyteller.
80
Like eclipse glasses, these songs are a way to see things too intense to stare at directly. Peer through them, though, and there's Bejar's world, darkness and beauty visible.
80
Have We Met shares melodic strengths with his previous high-water marks.
80
Have We Met marks a return to Kaputt's pusher aesthetic and eager melodicism, with "Crimson Tide", "The Raven" and "The Man in Black's Blues" all serving as irresistible examples of Bejar's blend of soft rock, dream-pop and more idiosyncratic elements.
77
A hermetic record that is practically self-contained within a computer hard drive. Yet Have We Met never lacks for atmosphere, or a sense of unpredictability that feels kinetic.
70
Despite its digressions, Have We Met is rich and varied enough to offer more than just throwback thrills. It's further proof that amid both destruction and devotion, Bejar's voice remains compelling.
70
While Have We Met doesn't sound quite like top-shelf Destroyer, it's a fine testament to Bejar's talent and his gift for having things both ways at once, lyrically droll and musically cool and on point.
60
Dan Bejar's new album is a loose, spontaneous collection of tracks that's light but lacking a little of his trademark depth.
60
‘Have We Met’ seems brighter and more airy than his previous records, which were dripping in sleazy noir. His outlook on the world is no happier than it was before, but the lack of a bigger band brings out a fresher sound in the Destroyer canon.
60
Musically, Have We Met is one of Bejar’s most interesting so far. But the grating oh-so-indie-look-at-me lyrics bash against the beauty of the beats.
60
Even by his own standards, Bejar’s 13th album as Destroyer is oblique.
No
(Me saying no to his album name we havent met beacause we havent met and i dont know him but his songs and sings and guitars are good and cool so i can want to meet him but i dont know him and havent metd him)
(Me saying no to his album name we havent met beacause we havent met and i dont know him but his songs and sings and guitars are good and cool so i can want to meet him but i dont know him and havent metd him)
Call it premature hyperbole if you will, but Have We Met is the first truly essential album to be released in 2020. Destroyer come through on their thirteenth effort in a big way, crafting an album that exists within a time vacuum; one of which that could exist in nearly any era and still sound fitting. An amalgamation of synth-laced tones, layered instrumentation, slick guitar notes, and the constantly gripping performance by Dan Bejar, all the pieces of Have We Met seem to gel.
I could ... read more
I could ... read more
Bejar returns with his most minimal and artfully poised collection of ‘outwardly aloof sounding/actually disarmingly intimate’ poetic pop yet.
It feels like a logical continuation of ‘Ken’, in so much as that album strategically retreated a few steps back to a place closer to career standout ‘Kaputt’, but in the process still managed to prise open a few doors for future progression...
...and progress is exactly what we have here. Where ‘Poison ... read more
It feels like a logical continuation of ‘Ken’, in so much as that album strategically retreated a few steps back to a place closer to career standout ‘Kaputt’, but in the process still managed to prise open a few doors for future progression...
...and progress is exactly what we have here. Where ‘Poison ... read more
Finally, the first 2020 record that is an early standout and deserved it so. Dan Bejar always writes poignant, comic yet rewarding tunes with layers and layers of complex instrumentation and lyricism. Never sleep on this one.
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Track List
| 1 | Crimson Tide 6:09 | |
| 2 | Kinda Dark 3:25 | |
| 3 | It Just Doesn't Happen 5:01 | |
| 4 | The Television Music Supervisor 4:09 | |
| 5 | The Raven 3:35 | |
| 6 | Cue Synthesizer 3:55 | |
| 7 | University Hill 3:39 | |
| 8 | Have We Met 2:54 | |
| 9 | The Man in Black’s Blues 3:39 | |
| 10 | Foolssong 5:45 |
Total Length: 42 minutes
Year End Lists
| #9 | / | Gothamist |
| #17 | / | Exclaim! |
| #18 | / | Pitchfork |
| #19 | / | NBHAP |
| #20 | / | Under the Radar |
| #21 | / | No Ripcord |
| #28 | / | Northern Transmissions |
| #35 | / | Treble |
| #36 | / | Uncut |
| #37 | / | Les Inrocks |
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Added on: October 22, 2019