The Destroyers – Out Of Babel

The Destroyers are a 15 piece Oom-Pah band from Birmingham, with a tuba, a hurdy-gurdy and an average age of about 45. In short, all of the ingredients are present to make them possibly the least cool band ever (Oom-Pah was always more uncool than Prog). But then, their front man sounds like a more piratey version of Tom Waits (Pirates are cool, right?), and they provide us with such an insane medley of sound and genre, and are so wonderfully chaotic and fun that it’s difficult to not love them regardless. Out of Babel opens with a swirl of noise, and a gruff narration, it’s atmospheric and could be described as the calm before the storm. Suddenly the album explodes in a flurry of a throbbing brass section and stabbing strings. Vocalist Paul Murphy growls arcane lyrics over the top in a manner reminiscent of Rain Dogs era Tom Waits, it is clear the Destroyers are at their best when they follow this template. Particularly in the horror film-esque growling of “The Glass Coffin Burial of Professor Zurinak”, that quickly yields to a medley of instruments and wonderful shouts of “Let me out!”. ‘Political’ song “Where has the money gone?” with its strong reggae influence is also highly enjoyable.In the days after receiving Out of Babel, I played it to any visitors to my house that’d listen. Reactions ranged from “What the hell is this?” to “This is awesome”, but the general consensus was that The Destroyers are insane and that we love them. However, they are unfortunately a novelty, and my friends and I quickly grew tired of them. It’s only so long before you realise you are essentially sitting around listening to gypsy music, and the novelty of how different and exciting The Destroyers first seemed began to wear off. At their fastest and most chaotic The Destroyers still hold the power to thrill me, but their slower paced songs (particularly the songs more influenced by Spanish folk towards the rear end of the album) soon begin to bore. The Destroyers unfortunately lose most of the magic they once had when they slow their music down, and remove the vocals of Paul Murphy.I would love for The Destroyers to be more than a novelty act, I would love Out of Babel to be able to thrill me for its entire 45 minutes, and I would love to hand it a coveted TLOBF Recommends tag and describe it as “unforgettable, insane and magical from start to finish”. Unfortunately I can’t, because however incredible Out of Babel seems at its chaotic peaks, too quickly it slows down, loses it’s magic and bizarre novelty and I realise I am listening to the type of music played at village fetes, and that’s simply not cool.The Destroyers on Myspace