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Destroyer's Rubies
 
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Destroyer's Rubies

Destroyer
4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews) More about this product

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Frequently Bought Together

Destroyer's Rubies + Your Blues + Trouble in Dreams
Price For All Three: $45.94

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  • This item: Destroyer's Rubies ~ Destroyer

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  • Your Blues ~ Destroyer

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Product Details

  • Audio CD (February 21, 2006)
  • Original Release Date: February 21, 2006
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Merge Records
  • ASIN: B000E1158G
  • In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #73,804 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.

Samples
Song Title Time Price
listen  1. Rubies 9:25$0.99 Buy Track
listen  2. Your Blood 4:15$0.99 Buy Track
listen  3. European Oils 4:54$0.99 Buy Track
listen  4. Painter in Your Pocket 4:10$0.99 Buy Track
listen  5. Looters' Follies 7:26$0.99 Buy Track
listen  6. 3000 Flowers 3:46$0.99 Buy Track
listen  7. A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point 6:02$0.99 Buy Track
listen  8. Priest's Knees 3:08$0.99 Buy Track
listen  9. Watercolours into the Ocean 4:46$0.99 Buy Track
listen10. Sick Priest Learns to Last Forever 5:53$0.99 Buy Track


Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Updating AM radio's finer country-rock moments, Destroyer's Rubies showcases a new trend for Destroyer fans--the full-band, ensemble approach. The album succeeds when could-seem contrived Nashville-inspired themes and sounds (baritone saxophones, electric pianos, quoting Jim Reeves) mingle with full melodies and New Pornographer contributor Dan Bejar's self-styled lyrical phrasing. Happily, this results in a music that's totally appealing. Standouts are "European Oils," featuring some of the most gorgeously layered guitar runs and one of the best solos Bejar's recorded yet; "Painter in Your Pocket," a lovely, thoughtful, pure-pop exploration; and opener "Rubies," a song that's all at once soaring and antiphonal as well as introverted in its demo-recorded coda. The album reveals a spectrum of moods without chaos: There's ballsy rocker "3000 Flowers," breezy The Sea and Cake-at-their-finest "Watercolours into the Ocean," and grandiose psychedelia à la Buffalo Springfield on "Sick Priest Learns to Live Forever." In drawing on the theatrical, macro-orchestrations reminiscent of Scott Walker and expanding on the slapdash, quirky, musical humor of the Red Krayola's Mayo Thompson, this album reaches another peak for Bejar and is one of Destroyer's best works yet. --Gabi Knight

More of Dan Bejar and Destroyer


Your Blues

This Night

Streethawk: A Seduction

Mass Romantic

Electric Version

Twin Cinema



Product Description
Vancouver's Dan Bejar returns with his sixth full-length under the moniker Destroyer. As expected, it's a thoroughly unexpected collection of clever pop music that takes no prisoners. "Destroyer's Rubies" weaves a narrative of loves won and lost, missed opportunities, and artistic integrity familiar to Destroyer fans. Bejar's Dylanesque flair for biting wit and his nods to the glamorous and bombastic folk approach of early T-Rex and Bowie distance Destroyer from the more straightforward pop of his other band, The New Pornographers, without sacrificing any of the tunefulness of that band's approach.


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Customer Reviews

23 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (8)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastically, unimaginably good, February 26, 2006
By Joseph A Kauzlarich (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
I will honestly say that out of the 50+ albums I heard last year, had this come out 3 months earlier, it would've been in the top 2 (it's a tough choice between this & Sufjan Stevens, although I prefer this). Following the mediocre-to-good release of Your Blues in 2004, I never would have guessed that Destroyer had the capacity to create an album such as this. Dan Bejar, co-lyricist for the ground-breaking power pop band The New Pornographers, along with his bandmates, differ remarkably in texture & purpose from that of the New Porn's; the dense, baroque pop feel is still there, but subdued by the extravagence of the instrumentation. Bejar's vision, as we've seen to a lesser extent on Your Blues, leans toward the avant-garde, a series of formless songs with expert lyricism that he sings over the full instrumentation with the seeming spontaneity of some great 60's jazz-- Andrew Hill's piano or Miles Davis's Jack-Johnson-era trumpet.

The major source of improvement comes from the band itself. Whereas earlier the band backed up Bejar with more constraint, now the band comes forth as wonderfully as Bejar. An album like Rubies comes from the expertise of every single player and, no doubt, the producer (Bejar? I didn't look). The piano and other keyboard instruments are a noteworthy improvement. Like Neutral Milk Hotel's "Aeroplane..." or Okkervil River's brilliant album "Down the River..." Rubies is a swirl of captivating instrumentation and lyrics that listeners can ponder over for years, an epic sort of album where the tracks wind together without explicit conceptual refrains (as in NMH's "Aeroplane...").

It's worth noting that Destroyer recently collaborated with the like-minded, but harder-edged avant-rock group Frog Eyes on a reworking of selections from Your Blues. Frog Eyes are one of my favorite of today's bands (The Folded Palm is a minor masterpiece), and I'm wondering if this could be the impetus for Destroyer's dramatic improvement. Well, whatever went on behind our backs, Rubies probably belongs in your collection.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Cheers to the last CD, June 11, 2007
Great music, no doubt about that one and not much one can add to the rave reviews. Cheers to that!

This CD however comes with copy-protection that makes you unable to listen to it on your computer or ipod. that is just about the most stupid thing a publisher can do - so cheers to the last cd I'll ever buy from MERGE RECORDS. As far as I'm concerned, not labelling the cover as a scrambled / copy protected cd is simply [....].
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars the effin' maniac, July 4, 2006
By Piehole (Texas) - See all my reviews
Prior to this release, I was only familiar with Dan Bejar through the New Pornographers. To me his contributions there, while lyrically and musically interesting, seemed a bit distractive vocally. In Destroyer, Bejar is in his own element and has developed his own style. In this setting, we get a complete set of songs that are not in competition with other songwriters and singers. On Destroyer's Rubies, this focused attention reveals much complexity and range. The song arrangements couldn't be better. Some are minimally orchestrated, some have horns, most have piano, organ and rhodes-like keyboards, but all arrangements seem to achieve the songs' greatest potential. Bejar touches on musical styles as diverse as Motown ("Dangerous Woman..."), hippie classic rock a la Deja Vu-era CSNY ("Sick Priest Learns..."), power pop ("3000 Flowers"), and the indie rock of Pavement/Malkmus ("Your Blood" and "Priest's Knees").


Admittedly, Bejar's singing is not for everyone. It wasn't for me initially - but I'm among the converted now. His vocal delivery is kinda half spoken, half sung as Dylan or Lou Reed tends to be; Bejar is perhaps more over the top in his articulation and emotion. Besides his vocal delivery, the tone and quality of his voice is somewhat like Bowie's. I would think most readers who ended up here are open minded enough to get over any initial objections to the vocals. There is too much to like to dismiss it on vocals alone.

The lyrics are weird, ambiguous, and clever. Bejar slyly borrows many lyrical phrases and titles from other artists and puts them into a different melody and context. With almost each new listen, I discover new references and quotations. (he name checks Proud Mary, refers to a golden slumber, uses "I couldn't bare to..." which is an apparent reference to "Awful Bliss" by GBV, cops "Oh life is bigger.." from "Losing My Religion", and sings "kids...they were all right", a reference to The Who). I'm sure there are many more.

As other reviewers have speculated, I predict this CD will be on many "Best of 2006" lists. Highly Recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars The light went on when I read the lyrics
First listen: Not all that great, some interesting moments, the guy cops Dylan, the music moves around too much, often a sign of pretension. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Thinline

4.0 out of 5 stars Groundbreaking Album
This is simply a groundbreaking thoroughly distinct album. The taste is acquired but you simply can't deny its genius
Published on January 13, 2007 by Kevin Mclain

4.0 out of 5 stars Unique
A very unique sound that is unlike any other band. It is nice to hear something so original and not just a copy of someone elses style. Read more
Published on January 9, 2007 by K. John

4.0 out of 5 stars Great if you're in the mood.
This album is a bit more accessible than previous works by Destroyer. I find I have to be a bit more in the mood for it as the album as a whole is very much the same. Read more
Published on November 3, 2006 by J. Renard

4.0 out of 5 stars Bold, Beautiful and Way Out
When Dan Bejar says in "Priest's Knees" that "I was another west coast maximalist exploring the blues", he is only partially having the listener on. Read more
Published on October 25, 2006 by George a Pletz

5.0 out of 5 stars Bejar is a genius
Taking a departure from the theatrical show that was 2004's Your Blues, Dan Bejar makes a bit of a return to his earlier, acoustic work here while at the same time maintaining the... Read more
Published on October 22, 2006 by S. Stone

3.0 out of 5 stars Sort of like Dylan -at a stage, to a point.
You might think I'm nuts, but Destroyer's Rubies reminds me of Bob Dylan's 1965 masterpiece album, Highway 61 Revisited. First, the music. Read more
Published on October 3, 2006 by William Krischke

5.0 out of 5 stars no comparisons, no stereotypes
unique, this band is not alike many in this masked market.
as morning jacket, destroyers' rubies has so such a discrete influences that are almost impossible to perceive... Read more
Published on September 23, 2006 by Stephen A. Sauls

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good.

My first thought upon hearing this was: "God, not another lame Dylan pastiche." I found the lyrics (and the delivery) silly and overwrought. Read more
Published on September 9, 2006 by desmond

5.0 out of 5 stars Nearly Perfect
So, I had gotten into Mr. Behar's music courtesy of the New Pornographers and had gotten "This Night" and "Your Blues" for Christmas gifts. Read more
Published on August 16, 2006 by M. Mulcahy

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Destroyer's Rubies opens new browser window by Destroyer opens new browser window is mainly Baroque Pop, quite Indie, with hints of Alternative Rock”

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