Album review: Blitzen Trapper, 'Destroyer of the Void'
2.5 stars (out of 4)
Blitzen Trapper broke through in 2008 with its fourth studio album, “Furr,” which captured an emerging musical movement brimming with bushy-haired hippies and songs framing the urban-rural divide as a spiritual struggle. The title song of “Furr” was the stuff of myth, in which a man metamorphoses into a wolf, and has his eyes opened and mind blown.
The musician responsible for that song and the prime mover in this Portland sextet’s evolution, Eric Earley, returns on “Destroyer of the Void” (Sub Pop) with more songs steeped in Old West narrative, hippie idealism and the folk storytelling tradition: a murder ballad with acoustic guitar and harmonica in “The Man Who Would Speak True”; a dream-like cab ride in “Below the Hurricane” that journeys toward the place where “the world is wide and waiting”; the traveler who ambles back in time to find his “black-eyed angel of the evening star.”
Earley’s titles evoke epic struggles (“Love and Hate,” “Heaven and Earth”) and his lyrics aim for poetic sweep (“I opened my mouth like a dragon’s breath/I only spoke truth but it only brought death/And I laid those boys to rest”). The music aspires to a similar timeless appeal, a folk-rock hybrid that would feel right at home on a Gram Parsons or Crosby Stills & Nash record. Things get more interesting when the band loosens up a bit on the multi-part title track; layered harmonies, elegant harpsichord and celestial synthesizers give way to a flamboyant mid-section with some unusually strident, glam-rock guitar. Where did that come from? And can we have some more of that next time, please?
greg@gregkot.com
Sponsored Link: Amazon's Blitzen Trapper Store
Blitzen Trapper broke through in 2008 with its fourth studio album, “Furr,” which captured an emerging musical movement brimming with bushy-haired hippies and songs framing the urban-rural divide as a spiritual struggle. The title song of “Furr” was the stuff of myth, in which a man metamorphoses into a wolf, and has his eyes opened and mind blown.
The musician responsible for that song and the prime mover in this Portland sextet’s evolution, Eric Earley, returns on “Destroyer of the Void” (Sub Pop) with more songs steeped in Old West narrative, hippie idealism and the folk storytelling tradition: a murder ballad with acoustic guitar and harmonica in “The Man Who Would Speak True”; a dream-like cab ride in “Below the Hurricane” that journeys toward the place where “the world is wide and waiting”; the traveler who ambles back in time to find his “black-eyed angel of the evening star.”
Earley’s titles evoke epic struggles (“Love and Hate,” “Heaven and Earth”) and his lyrics aim for poetic sweep (“I opened my mouth like a dragon’s breath/I only spoke truth but it only brought death/And I laid those boys to rest”). The music aspires to a similar timeless appeal, a folk-rock hybrid that would feel right at home on a Gram Parsons or Crosby Stills & Nash record. Things get more interesting when the band loosens up a bit on the multi-part title track; layered harmonies, elegant harpsichord and celestial synthesizers give way to a flamboyant mid-section with some unusually strident, glam-rock guitar. Where did that come from? And can we have some more of that next time, please?
greg@gregkot.com
Sponsored Link: Amazon's Blitzen Trapper Store