''Your Blues'' is the sixth

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 ...

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 March 8, 2004 by

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 ...

Trifekta Records Trifekta is the name of a now defunct Australia based independent record label, based in Fitzroy, Victoria. It was started in 1997 by Tom Larnach-Jones (Shock Records), Tim Everest and Paul 'Presser' Towner (Gerling). The first release for t ...

, Scratch Records,

Talitres Records Talitres, formerly known as Talitres Records, is a French independent record label based in Bordeaux, founded in 2000 and specializing in indie pop and folk music. It began as a way to release music from indie rock bands that were not distribute ...

, and Acuarela Discos. It is a notable departure from the full-band format of Destroyer's previous few albums, largely featuring

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...

-simulated orchestration as its backing music. The album was reissued in 2014 by

Critical reception

''Your Blues'' received positive reviews from contemporary music critics. At

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, 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 79, based on 14 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Matt LeMay of

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog. Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...

gave the album a very favorable review stating, "Like Bejar's 2002 release ''This Night'', ''Your Blues'' constitutes a fundamental challenge to deeply ingrained conventions of sincerity and emotional honesty. The record's conceptual brilliance lies largely in Bejar's ability to craft deeply moving passages out of ostensibly artificial and contrived elements, subtly suggesting that all music, if not all human expression, is in effect some sort of artifice. Bejar's critical engagement with codified aesthetic techniques certainly renders Your Blues a less immediately "accessible" record, and can at first come off as kitschy or detached. But the album's unique and defiant expression makes this the most holistically accomplished album Bejar has released to date."

Track listing

Personnel

Destroyer

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 ...

- vocals, acoustic guitar, Roland XV-3080, Kurzweil K2600, percussion, production *John Collins - Roland XV-3080, Kurzweil K2600, production, recording *David Carswell - Roland XV-3080, Kurzweil K2600, production, recording

Additional personnel

*Jamie Sitar - mastering at Suite Sound Labs, Vancouver *Sydney Vermont - drawing *Marya Spenton - layout

References and notes

External links

Streaming version of the track "It's Gonna Take an Airplane"Streaming version of the track "The Music Lovers"
{{Authority control 2004 albums Destroyer (band) albums Merge Records albums Albums produced by John Collins (Canadian musician) Albums produced by David Carswell