Canada is on a roll. "South Park" cracks are down, hockey attendance is up and their dollar is making ours the new peso.
As a bonus, every couple of years Vancouver's Dan Bejar drops a batch of catchy freak-folk pop songs that manage to find their way across the border. But with all of Canada's cherished exports - maple syrup, Michael J. Fox, Wonderbra - Bejar, aka Destroyer, gets lost in the mix. But he shouldn't.
Another solid album, "Trouble In Dreams" plays half-awake, half-asleep, balancing sprightly pop tunes with lazy Sunday afternoon ballads.
Stellar Bowie-nod "The State" captures both sounds, meshing woozy guitar lines with frenetic, whenever-the-hell-I-feel-like-it drumming and Bejar's drunken ranting.
It's a glorious mess.
Towering centerpiece "Shooting Rockets" is further evidence that Canadian therapists make a good living. Dark and confessional, it would make Eliot Spitzer blush.
More upbeat, "Rivers" contains a killer hook, the refrain, "You've always had a problem floating down rivers." It could be about an ex-lover or a rock. With this much melody, it doesn't matter.
The song exemplifies Bejar's trademark enigmatic storytelling.
Indeed, within "Dreams," a fine line separates lucidity from sanctuary, and Bejar pogos the divide in a way only a poet can.
His obscure lyrics offer bleak confessions cloaked in "what the hell does he mean?" metaphors.
Bejar's audience will come away with two impressions. First, like a dream, it's quite a trick to comprehend, but certainly engrossing. The second is more of a question: Canada's got a good thing going, eh?
