Destroyer of the Void

Personnel: Kelly Meyer, Kate O'Brien-Clarke, Heather Woods Broderick (strings).
Audio Mixers: Michael Van Pelt; Mike Coykendall.
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