Destroyer: Dan’s Boogie review – darkness haunts a gorgeous ruined palace of a record

If Dan Bejar’s musically shifting Destroyer project has a trademark, it’s the art of surprise. The Canadian is a master of strange lyrical koans that transcend the singer’s acerbic tone to brim with weird, warm feeling, set against luxuriant arrangements. To share his headspace is to see a city in a different light – how “the opera house is a jam space for the desperate and insane”, as on the title track of Dan’s Boogie; to take pride in failure: “The family curse was our signature scent,” he sings on Sun Meet Snow. “The world ran from it holding its nose.”

This time, the protagonists of Bejar’s 14th album are feeling similarly side-swiped. Sudden change strands laggards at sea. Ghosts and inclement weather creep in without warning. Darker forces leave Bejar “sick of women missing / In the dark light that hangs / O’er the low-backed side streets”. On the strikingly sweet highlight Cataract Time, Bejar tenderly observes the folly of assuming that “we think we know / Enough to go on”.

Gentle closer Travel Light waves off the “dopers and pushers” who think they can outrun fate. But Bejar is committed to the beauty in chaos: how “the sun mostly rises / A great golden spike through the heart of the world”, as he sings on the oddly calming The Ignoramus of Love. That outlook beams through this gorgeous ruined palace of a record, one that swaggers from rococo to shambling, haunted to boisterous. It is just as rapturous as his 2011 breakout, Kaputt – unerring quality being another Destroyer trademark.