If you're anything like me, you've probably stayed up late many a night wondering what the bastard offspring of David Bowie and Robyn Hitchcock might sound like. To try to quell my obsession, I've done everything from pasting pictures of Hitchcock's head onto Bowie's body, to hacking into hotel computers to make their reservations coincide. My plan almost worked, too, as Bowie did make obvious advances towards Hitchcock. Unfortunately, Hitchcock replied with a firm "sod off". Maybe it was the bum eye.

Luckily, this infatuation of mine has finally come to a halt. It's a good thing, too; my next plot involved somehow irradiating the two pop legends, which might have proven harmful to both of them (and probably myself). Instead, I've settled for Destroyer, who have finally proven what months of madcap antics only suggested: a Bowie-Hitchcock hybrid would kick ass.

Of course, this particular hybrid isn't perfect. At his best, frontman Daniel Bejar sounds like Robyn Hitchcock singing David Bowie songs with Guided by Voices lyrics. At his worst... well, at his worst he sounds exactly the same, only worse. (How's that for critical insight?) The portions of Thief that prominently feature Bejar's talents as a vocalist and songwriter never fail to please, but when his bandmates step into the spotlight, it's the listener that gets burned.

Thief opens with the very Hitchcock-esque "Destroyer's the Temple", a track which has already reached cult hit status on college radio stations across the country. Over plucked nylon guitar and rumbling bass, Bejar yelps lines like, "Though the solitudes have won, I cannot begin to crave you/ Please spring us, Madeline, from the rusty jails of lust we live in." What's he talking about? I don't care. He sounds like Robyn Hitchcock's demented Canadian half-brother, and that's pretty damn cool.

But just when you think you've got Destroyer pegged as a Soft Boys cover band, strands of Bowie DNA begin to pop up in Bejar's genome. "Canadian Lover/Falcon's Escape" is a perfect example of Bejar's formula, going from a laidback Hitchcock acoustic number to an (early) Bowie sonic barrage, with added bits of harpsichord and heavily altered guitar sounds.

Yes, the first five songs on Thief rock. Unfortunately, the sixth, "Every Christmas", shatters any shot the album had at being all-around excellent, and from that point on, the record is a mixed bag. High points like "In Dreams" mesh with wanky instrumental filler like "I.H.O.J." and "M.E.R.C.I." It's hard to believe that someone capable of cranking out an excellent pop tune like "The Way of Perpetual Roads" cannot realize that these songs sound like shit. My advice to Bejar: keep the band. Just don't let them out of their cages.

-Matt LeMay, August, 2000