Blitzen Trapper's fifth full-length album opens with the Portland, OR-based sextet’s most challenging song to date, a sprawling six-minute prog rock epic that will draw forth from the lips of critics words like
Queen,
Bowie,
ELO,
Tull, and
Beatles. Technically impressive and immaculately arranged and performed, “Destroyer of the Void” removes the kitchen sink from the equation early in the record, which helps pave the way for
Destroyer of the Void, the album, to unfold. Frontman
Eric Earley’s obvious love of
the Beach Boys,
Gram Parsons,
Bob Dylan, and
Neil Young hangs like a fog over
the Void, and his reliance on redemptive, outlaw, and biblical imagery often feels like
Nick Cave and
16 Horsepower without the torrential brimstone. Album highlights arrive in the form of murder ballads ("The Man Who Would Speak True"), lush desert hymns (“Heaven and Earth”), and
Doors-inspired highway rockers (“Dragon’s Song”), all of which feel lived in and appropriately sepia-toned. ~ James Christopher Monger