Notorious Lightning and Other Works is an EP that features more guitar-oriented recordings of six songs from Destroyer's 2004 release, Your Blues. The recordings are a welcome change for fans who were put off by the synthetic textures of that record, but are dynamic and interesting enough to make this EP worth owning even for listeners who already own and enjoy the originals. Backed by tourmates Frog Eyes, Destroyer's Dan Bejar retains all of the theatricality and obtuse wordplay he's known for, and adds more viscera and emotion to the songs through the addition of Carey Mercer's sinewy, distorted guitarwork and howled vocals. The atmospherics of the original recordings that kept the songs at a distance has been shed, and the new arrangements bristle with immediacy.
Mercer's singing complements Bejar's well, lending a world-weary and ragged tone to the title track's extended coda. The rest of Frog Eyes, billed here as Destroyer Players, also work well with Bejar, particularly the keyboard work of Grayson Walker as heard in the outro of “New Ways of Living.” The contributions of the members of Frog Eyes are what make this record so enjoyable; it feels like a genuine collaboration rather than Bejar telling a group of studio musicians how to play his songs, and because the other musicians bring something new to the table, the recordings have virtues of their own that can be appreciated even outside of the context of their original versions on Your Blues.
The manic intensity of the first four songs slows down and shifts to a more mournful, resigned tone for “Don't Become the Thing You Hated,” which of the songs featured is probably most similar to its Your Blues counterpart. Likewise, things remain subdued for the final track: a stately, elegant version of “Your Blues.”
True to his moniker, it's fitting that with this release Bejar destroyed the notion of the definitive recording in pop music. In the past, the remixing and rerecording of songs had only yielded stale, lifeless results that were never enjoyable in their own right. In contrast, the songs found on Notorious Lightning and Other Works equal if not surpass the originals. Despite that, at just under half an hour, this EP still might be a bit too slight to work as an introduction to Destroyer for new listeners, but for the initiated, Notorious Lightning and Other Works is well worth investigating.
