Destruction Island, a newish indie rock band that released their debut CD in April, first made my radar a couple months ago when they played Sanford and Son with Portland’s 31 Knots. A few weeks later, Preaches the New Wilderness – Destruction Island’s aforementioned debut — showed up at Weekly Volcano World Headquarters. That was early May, and the disc has sat in a pile in the corner of my office ever since — at least until now.
If you caught on last week, you know we now run CD reviews every Thursday in the online version of the Weekly Volcano. I like to think they’re fairly dope, but then again I write them.
This week I finally dug Preaches the New Wilderness out of that pile. It was the best decision I’ve made in some time. This shit is good.
The terms that typically describe Destruction Island, or bands of the same ilk — like indie, and pop and the always popular power pop — are useless these days. The brandings have been used and abused, and at this point mean next to nothing. What the fuck is pop, anyway? What does it mean to be indie anymore?
The good thing about these terms being useless, at least in this case, is Destruction Island defies them all anyway. This band sticks its foot in a little of everything.
After an epic, ‘70s arena rock band style intro on the CDs first track, the 22 second long “Saturday Evening: These Alleys Fill with Wolves” — violins setting the mood — Destruction launches into the crunch. Rhythmic guitar scrapes get your juices flowing for “Casually Finding a Torso on a Sunday Morning,” along with frontman Kye Alfred Hillig’s proclamation “Tripped on the light/broke the disco,” repeated for affect.
Then the guitars hit.
Summoning up menacing demon licks that would make the Supersuckers proud, it doesn’t take Destruction Island long to prove they’ve got a few tricks up their sleeve — and one of them is rocking without pretension or regret. “Casually Finding a Torso…” is a song Post Stardom Depression could cover. The aggressive guitar work and Hillig’s vocal wail are enough to incite devil horns and beer chugging — at the very least.
However, as quickly as the gentleman in Destruction Island prove they can rock, they prove they’re more than a one trick pony. “Good Reincarnations” matches a Strokes-esque guitar intro with a bit of electronic charm and produces one of the album’s strongest tracks. “The End is Near!!!” — and its subtle, dusty, country ease — makes the perfect halfway mark for Preaches the New Wilderness.
It’s also the point where I came to terms with this fact: Destruction Island is legit.
(Hillig’s line “your orthodontist must have had sex on his mind” from the following track, “France!!!” only confirmed things.)
Destruction Island is a force to be felt and heard — whatever you call them. They’re my kind of band. They can do a little bit of everything, and do it well. In an age when musical genre names mean nothing, Destruction Island proves why.
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