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| Pitchfork |
 Cheers to Portland's Blitzen Trapper for opening their fifth full-length, Destroyer of the Void, with the album's almost proggy title track. "Destroyer of the Void" ambitiously steamrolls over decades of canonical popular music, squishing it into an epic suite that gathers Beatles harmonies, sci-fi synths, classic rock guitars, country-rock twang, and AOR sentimentality into one big, ballsy package. It's a surprising and precarious way to kick off an album, especially the follow-up to 2008's Furr, on which Blitzen Trapper stuck primarily to Laurel Canyon folk-rock. Coming on the heels of their more chameleonic and ramshackle breakout LP, Wild Mountain Nation, Furr narrowed Blitzen Trapper's expansive sonic scope. And so it wouldn't be wrong for fans to expect that Destroyer would be even more tightly focused and single-minded in its commitment to honeyed, loose-limbed jams.The rest of the album is more expected-- full of haunting songs doused in harmonicas, saloon pianos, and dusty guitars. Unlike many of their contemporaries doing the bearded-70s-folk-rocker thing, Blitzen Trapper's influences lie less with hippie-ish CSNY or the Grateful Dead and more with the rugged late-60s roots-rock of Bob Dylan and the Band. Blitzen Trapper's version of Americana is one of the most melodic and playful (and least affectedly twangy) since Being There-era Wilco, and Eric Earley uses his craggy Dylanesque voice to add grit to his more featherweight melodies. Though dark, dry murder ballad "The Man Who Would Speak True" feels like a second chapter to Furr's gothic "Black River Killer" and "Heaven and Earth" sounds like a bruised version of that album's "Not Your Lover", Destroyer, as a whole, doesn't play like Furr Pt. 2 . In and amongst the acoustic narratives that populate the album is a sludgy, metallic rocker ("Love and Hate"), rhythmic, Tom Petty-ish roots-pop ("Evening Star"), and a delicate duet with hometown chanteuse Alela Diane ("The Tree", the album's best song) that allow Earley and his crew to flex little used muscles and grow in surprising directions....full text |
| Spin |
| It takes guts to open a record with a six-minute song that splits the difference between the soft prog of ELO and the folk pop of America, but this Portland troupe make it work. For the rest of their fifth album, they hew to a similar early-'70s aura -- nodding to a time when spacey keyboard effects and alt-country dust carried serious cachet. Singer Eric Earley's fantastical yarns match the band's grandiose genre-muddling, from the Steely Dan jazz lilt of "Lover Leave Me Drowning" to the string-laden piano ballad "Heaven and Earth."...full text |
| Onethirtybpm |
| The new album by Portland, OR folk rock band Blitzen Trapper is now streaming on NPR. The album is called Destroyer of the Void and will be released on June 8 through Sub Pop. Destroyer of the Void sees the band expanding on the sound of their previous album, 2008’s Furr, and bringing influences from, among others, The Beatles and early Queen to the front while still sticking to their familiar sound. Blitzen Trapper have also unveiled their new website, where you can trade an e-mail address for a download of “Dragon’s Song” from Destroyer of the Void and a demo of “Heaven and Earth”. Stream the full album here. Tracklist: 1. Destroyer of the Void 2. Laughing Lover 3. Below The Hurricane 4. The Man Who Would Speak True 5. Love and Hate 6. Heaven and Earth (download mp3) 7. Dragon’s Song 8. The Tree (feat. Alela Diane) 9. Evening Star 10. Lover Leave Me Drowning 11. The Tailor 12. Sadie...full text |
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