LEOPARD of HONOR

previously:
Trouble in Dreams, pt 1
It Was a Very Good Year

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Destroyer - "Shooting Rockets (From the Desk of Night's Ape)"

"Shooting Rockets" is the ominous centerpiece of Trouble in Dreams, and perhaps its most fascinating moment. This despite the fact that it's the second time Dan Bejar has recorded it. The song also appeared on Swan Lake's Beast Moans (2006) album in a severe, noise-blasted, barely comprehensible form, and I'm still not sure which version is more terrifying. Here the disturbing tone is maintained by Bejar's lyrics, which come to the forefront, sick and hallucinatory, and easily as menacing as the thick, black waters of the instrumental arrangement. It's music that wants to lull you to sleep, or drown you or something. A startlingly poetic song (even by Bejar's standards), part prophetic vision, part confession, part bizarre benediction, all dripping irony and nightmarish imagery--"Shooting Rockets" sounds like the culmination of something, of what I'm not sure.

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