Destroyer of the Void isn’t destroying much of anything

Everyone wants to embrace their hometown bands, and in Portland we have a few to laud. Sometimes, though, our want for hometown pride may be stronger than the bands in which we place our hopes.

Two years ago, Portland sextet Blitzen Trapper released its fourth album (and first major label recording) with Sub Pop Records. The polished, pop-folk ‘70s throwbacks on Furr commanded attention from major critics and garnered the band an international audience.

In the wake of the band’s success, the June 8 release of Blitzen Trapper’s fifth album (and second Sub Pop recording), Destroyer of the Void, is highly anticipated.

Destroyer was recorded during two breaks in the band’s hectic touring schedule for Furr, first in January 2009 and then in January 2010. The band’s recording studio was none other than the infamous attic studio of Portland musician and studio engineer Mike Coykendall.  Prior to these recording sessions, Coykendall produced two of the most popular tracks on Furr (“Lady on the Water” and “Black River Killer”) and also recorded tracks for Bright Eyes, She & Him and M. Ward.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, this album sounds like what it is: An uninspired second round, recorded by an exhausted band in an attic (following one of Portland’s most intense winter storms ever) and produced by a man closely associated with Zooey Deschanel. Why this weepy album is slated for a summer release, only Sub Pop execs know for certain.

To be fair, Destroyer is not an awful record—it’s just a record, like any other of the thousands of records released each year—there is nothing particularly exciting, original or special about it. The chord progressions and melodies on the disc are the same ones we’ve been hearing for decades, and the garage-rock spunk Blitzen Trapper managed in its debut and sophomore albums is long gone.

If you enjoyed the smoother tracks on Furr (“Not Your Lover,” “Stolen Shoes & a Rifle,” and arguably “Lady on the Water”) you might very well enjoy the light, fluid tracklist of Destroyer of the Void. The piano-heavy “Heaven and Earth” is available for free download on Blitzen Trapper’s website, and it’s a good sample of Destroyer’s overall sound: heavy, dreamy (and some might say sappy) lyrics over a slow and unbroken instrumental. Definitely not music to move to.

Exceptions to this generalization are “Love and Hate,” which gets a little louder and little rougher than the rest of the album, and “Evening Star,” in which front man Eric Earley channels Tom Petty circa The Last DJ.

A genuinely enjoyable track is “The Tailor,” notable for its earnestness—the precise quality missing from most of this record. The tone and delivery of this song’s lyrics are what makes it, but the instrumental breaks are forced and sound too much like a space carousel to be taken seriously.

Hopefully, Blitzen Trapper will take a few years off and record its sixth album when its members are genuinely ready to deliver something new. The band is promising, but Destroyer of the Void is not.