illustration study titled "Flamingoes" by Abbott Handerson Thayer for the book Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, c. 1900
Portland's spaced-out country rockers Blitzen Trapper are really balladeers in the traditional sense. Their songs are narratives, taking the listener to very specific (but never ordinary) times and places. Their new set of ballads, Destroyer of the Void, splits the difference between the approaches of their last two records, finding a happy medium between the off-kilter weirdness of 2007's Wild Mountain Nation and the more pastoral sounds of 2008's Furr. But, at the best of times, Blitzen Trapper's genre-twisting story songs can take a while to get into, and Destroyer of the Void doesn't seem overly concerned about throwing the listener straight into the deep end. The album begins with the six-minute title track, a multi-part prog-folk ballad that has a couple pretty sections but, overall, makes for a disorienting entry point.
Destroyer of the Void doesn't take long to find its groove after its opening misfire, moving between pretty folk-ballads ("Below the Hurricane"), murder ballads ("The Man Who Would Speak True"), and hippie ballads ("The Tree") with ease. Blitzen Trapper make explicit nods to some of their more obvious influences - Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival - but I also hear some new points of reference in Destroyer of the Void. The one that is most surprising is how some of the melody hooks point to mid-period XTC on songs like "Lover Leave Me Drowning". After a dozen listens, I still feel like I'm scratching at the surface of Destroyer of the Void, but the album's sepia story-lines are starting to reveal themselves. The album's first song is a real stumbling block, but I don't think that it's a big enough issue that it'll keep me from citing this as my favorite Blitzen Trapper album once I really get acquainted with it.
"Dragon's Song" by Blitzen Trapper
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