''Destroyer's Rubies'' is the seventh

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by Canadian

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

Destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

, released on February 21, 2006 on

Merge Records Merge Records is an independent record label based in Durham, North Carolina. It was founded in 1989 by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan. It began as an outlet for music from their band Superchunk and music created by friends, and has expande ...

, Scratch Records, Acuarela Discos, Architecture, and

Rough Trade Records Rough Trade Records is an independent record label based in London, England. It was formed in 1976 by Geoff Travis who had opened a record store off Ladbroke Grove. Having successfully promoted and sold records by punk rock and early post-pun ...

Musical style

Dan Bejar Daniel Bejar (; born October 4, 1972) is a Canadian singer and musician from Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the frontman of Destroyer, and is a member of indie rock band the New Pornographers. Overview In 2006, he joined with Carey Mercer ...

has stated that ''Destroyer's Rubies'' was intended to sound "Like a band playing in a room." He also called the album a "very natural record," noting that he embraced traditional songwriters such as

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

along with "image-heavy rants, but with a melodious, loping, folk-rock background." Lyrically, Bejar stated that the rest of the band is "coughing up so much melody" that he could do whatever he wanted with the words; the album was the "apex of

he lyrics He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

dueling with the music." ''Pitchfork'' noted the use of stark acoustic guitar, and ''The New York Times'' described the album and as "elegant, shaggy version of classic rock," emphasizing the use of

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contra ...

, a

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

, and Bejar's "weird, yelpy voice."

Release

The album peaked at #24 on

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

's ''Top Heatseekers'' music chart, and made it to #30 on the magazine's ''Top Independent Albums'' chart.

Reception

''Destroyer's Rubies'' received widespread acclaim from contemporary music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 88, based on 30 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Matt LeMay of ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'' gave the album a very favorable review, stating: "The album is structurally complex, thematically dense, and labyrinthine in its self-referentiality. Dan Bejar's vocals are, like many of his indie contemporaries, yelpy and dramatic, and many of his lyrics seem preordained to serve as mp3 blog headers. In other words, the qualities that once made Destroyer albums so 'difficult' make ''Destroyer's Rubies'' a perfect record for this critical moment." ''Pitchfork'' placed ''Destroyer's Rubies'' at number 158 on their list of the top 200 albums of the 2000s.

Track listing

Personnel

Ted Bois TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depart ...

* Nicolas Bragg * Tim Loewen * Scott Morgan *

Fisher Rose Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral. Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to: Places Australia *Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland *Elect ...

* John Collins

Notes

{{Authority control 2006 albums Destroyer (band) albums Merge Records albums Albums produced by John Collins (Canadian musician) Albums produced by David Carswell