Destroyer Debut “June”

Today, revered Canadian outfit Destroyer, fronted by illustrious and critically acclaimed songwriter Dan Bejar, share their third scintillating single, “June,” from their highly anticipated 2022 record LABYRINTHITIS, out 25th March via Bella Union. It arrives along with a new David Galloway – and Dan Bejar – directed music video.

While Bejar initially envisioned LABYRINTHITIS as a straight dance record (“just like Donna Summer’s greatest hits”), the hurtling coda of “June” explodes that simplicity into a million shining pieces, with Bejar and longtime collaborator John Collins’ initial jam expanding until the edges of the universe run through their fingertips, the band members peeling off in cathartic helixes.

The single, as with many of Bejar’s refrains, dissects the absurd juxtapositions of modern life, its poetics privy to the heinously abstruse entanglement of the beauty and pain of the human condition and the relentless marching of time. He teamed up with co-director Galloway on the video which further explores this idea of monotony vs. exuberance by following a reclusive Bejar and his futuristic delivery driver.

Carved from the subterranean burls of funk bass, warped synth-pop and nocturnal disco anomalies and written with collaborator John Collins from opposing states of isolation, Destroyer’s “June” joins previous singles “Tintoretto, It’s For You” and “Eat The Wine, Drink The Bread” as the sprawling touchstones of LABYRINTHITIS.

While the album’s songs may have been patched together like a mosaic of enigmatic ideas, the Destroyer band rolls the entire LABYRINTHITIS universe together—celestial waves unified despite the players’ physical time apart. Reorienting vertigo lingers long after the final note reverberates, its implacable aura and bewitching lyrics wriggling ever deeper into the mind with each resounding sigh of bewilderment.