Style: Alt-country; compare to Wilco, Bob Dylan, and My Morning Jacket
Top tracks: “The Man Who Would Speak Truth,” “The Tree,” “Below the Hurricane”
This Portland six-piece fuses alt-country and indie-folk over a classic rock-and-roll core. Blitzen Trapper’s multi-instrumental compositions alone are ambitious, but the deeply spiritual themes in the songs engage both the heart and mind on a higher level. Revealing struggles between personal desires and divine truths, Eric Earley’s lyrics are heavily metaphorical. When he sings, “I had a lover, her name was Grace / She found me down in a lonely place,” he’s not referring to a tangible event; the words are reminiscent of how Wisdom is personified in Proverbs. Destroyer of the Void tells cryptically mysterious but engaging stories that capture the soul’s ear.
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