Destroyer Announces New Album 'Have We Met,' Plots North American Tour

Watch the video for lead single "Crimson Tide"

BY Allie GregoryPublished Oct 22, 2019

Dan Bejar has announced plans to return with new Destroyer material early next year. His forthcoming album — titled Have We Met — is set to arrive this January 31 via Merge Records.

Alongside the album announcement, Bejar has announced a string of North American tour dates starting in February. The tour will see stops in a handful of Canadian cities, namely Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. See the full itinerary down below. 

Today, we also have our first taste of Have We Met with the newly shared album track "Crimson Tide," which has arrived alongside an accompanying video. The clip, which was directed by David Galloway, features some intensely cinematic moments. On his decision to meld performance with movie-reminiscent footage, Galloway had this to say:

Do you like the 1985 politico-dance-thriller White Nights? What about John Hughes' controversial 1986 proleteeniat love letter to the hoi polloi, Pretty In Pink? What do these seminal films of the 1980s have to do with Destroyer's overture to 2020, Have We Met? They are canonized not only by their groundbreaking and visionary contributions to Hollywood, they are escorted by the rarefied but much-maligned "movie tie-in music video." So this is like that, only a little bit different. I don't know if this particular movie is a "movie" in the traditional sense of the trope, and I don't know if there will be a soundtrack. There might be a bootleg mix-tape, though. 

That movie is
Ashcroft: an ambiguous short, an art-house film that explores time, memory, fruit, the landscape of the British Columbia interior, and recovery from — and into — deception. "Ashcroft is not a place of passive rest, but rather an intoxicating playground for excavation and manipulation" is a quote from the filmmakers' press release. Movies need songs [kind of] and songs need movies [videos?]. This is a music video about a movie, or for a movie, or really just with a movie. The point is: they love each other. With "Crimson Tide", Destroyer introduces listeners to yet another version of the Bejar Enigma, and ushers viewers to seats in an alternate cinematic universe. The dramatic music video that ties in to film is a lost art. Or maybe it's just a vulgar one. Either way, there's no rotten tomatoes here. Only rotten apples.

Watch the cinematic mystery at the bottom of the page.

Have We Met comes as Destroyer's first album since 2017's ken.

Tour dates:

02/21 Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater *
02/22 San Francisco, CA - August Hall *
02/23 Los Angeles, CA - Regent Theater *
02/24 Tucson, AZ - Club Congress *
02/26 Austin, TX - The Mohawk *
02/27 Dallas, TX - Club Dada *
02/28 Lawrence, KS - Granada Theater *
02/29 St. Paul, MN - Turf Club *
03/01 Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall *
03/02 Detroit, MI - Deluxx Fluxx *
03/04 Toronto, ON - Opera House ^
03/05 Montreal, QC - Theatre Fairmount ^
03/06 Boston, MA - The Sinclair ^
03/07 New York, NY - Brooklyn Steel ^
03/08 Philadelphia, PA - Underground Arts ^
03/09 Washington, DC - Black Cat ^
03/11 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle ^
03/12 Atlanta, GA - Terminal West ^
03/13 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge ^
03/14 St. Louis, MO - Blueberry Hill ^
03/15 Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room ^
03/16 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater ^
03/17 Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge ^
03/19 Seattle, WA - Neumos ^
03/20 Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre ^
05/05 London, UK - Village Underground

* with Eleanor Friedbeger
^ with Nap Eyes

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