Destroyer
Bay of Pigs
(Merge)
When we last saw Destroyer, Dan Bejar and his merry men were stuck in the stylistic cul-de-sac of Trouble in Dreams, an album that spun familiar variations on their glam rock sound. This new EP, released digitally and on vinyl, breaks that rut with a bold leap into the unknown. "Bay of Pigs" is a sprawling 14-minute track that's part ambient, part disco, part peppy synth-rock. It's one of Bejar's finest songs, confidently mixing charmingly oblique lyrics with constantly shifting sonics. The flip side is a spacey downtempo remake of "Rivers" that replaces the guitars with dissolute analog synth washes and amplifies the woozy heart of the song. The entire EP feels like a belated follow-up to the underrated, synth-saturated Your Blues. Hopefully it's less a glorious anomaly than a harbinger of things to come. —Jeff Jackson
Caroline Herring
Golden Apples
(Signature Sounds)
Caroline Herring's Golden Apples invites comparisons. Think the vibrato of Buffy Ste. Marie, the control of Joan Baez, the country flourishes of Gillian Welch, the open melodies of Kate Wolf, and you're still not there. Herring's cover of Joni Mitchell's "Cactus Tree" reproduces Mitchell's soaring upper register and vocal catches, and her own "Great Unknown," a musing on Dante's Inferno, also evokes a youthful Mitchell. Herring takes bold chances. The tune and vocals of "Long Black Veil" are sparser and grittier than is customary and contrast the earnest sweetness she brings to the blues standard "See See Rider." For sheer moxie, there's a reworking of the Cyndi Lauper hit "True Colors" built around a bass-note hook that makes it sound like it's always been a country song. Herring opens for Chris Smither at the Iron Horse on Nov. 7. —Rob Weir
Fancy Trash
For the Kids
(independent)
On the surface, singer/songwriter Dave Houghton's style feels like relaxed sincerity. Everything is beautifully melodically driven, from the vocals to the George Harrison-esque slide guitar parts, sometimes following standard chord progressions and sometimes meditatively repetitive in Celtic or East Indian-flavored scale patterns. The vocals pine earnestly yet civilly in the vein of Neil Young or Michael Stipe, but occasionally clamber onto that wrenchingly visceral plane of emotion that's typically only trodden by desperate, plaintive ghosts like Nick Drake or Elliot Smith. They're timid, but increasingly insistent on their need to be heard, like a dog who's been left alone for days. Verdict: disturbingly intimate and genuine. Fancy Trash opens for Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes) and the Ryans Nov. 11 and headlines a CD release party with openers Katyland on Nov. 21, both at the Iron Horse in Northampton. —Tom Sturm
