EAMON THE DESTROYER – The Maker’s Quit

Bearsuit 2025

EAMON THE DESTROYER –
The Maker’s Quit

Edinburgh hedonist seeks happiness in abandonment yet anchors his escapism to current affairs.

Perhaps, getting the previous experience out of his system and channeling the recent past through live performances was essential for this Scottish auteur to up the ante and make Eamon The Destroyer’s third studio effort most mind-boggling. Falling in line with the artwork of "A Small Blue Car" and "We'll Be Piranhas" which preceded it, the cover of “The Maker’s Quit” might look like another triptych, yet the latest choice of images doesn’t seem haphazard here. With a collage, in which a slice of Thomas Cole’s opulent “Destruction” shares space with a photo of an austere kitchen sink, plus a reappearance of a “GMO” logo, hinting at a lot of intrinsic contrast, both in subject matter and sonic dynamics, there’s a lot to make the eight pieces on display rather unpredictable and, thus, arresting.

Onwards from the wobbly, dirge-like titular cut, which evokes a wizard’s workshop environment done in a psychedelically cinematic way before voices channel the creator’s frustration, the landscapes that the listeners find themselves in are akin to those of Wonderland – or “Pleasureland” in Mr. Destroyer’s parlance, expressed in a largely instrumental track of this name via tremulous-to-corporeal serenading. Not a single piece passes by one’s mind eye without getting transformed, and it’s immensely satisfying to hear how the twangy “Silverback” snaps from menacing American funk into blissful European balladry only to unleash a fuzzy-scuzzy riff and diminish the aural assault by turning moody and landing on a slow, flamenco-tinctured vignette. Of course, establishing idyll would be too simple for Eamon, so “Three Wheels” will restore the funereal flow to blow the cobwebs away soon enough, with groovy ‘n’ groovy, if increasingly lightening, merriment, whereas the initial harmonic wave of “The Ocean” is broken to expose a nuanced folk filigree precariously hanging over the abyss of madness.

It’s a reverie as the sounds of a cooing baby suggest until the strings-drenched “Captive” offers an epic panorama whose misty, yet dynamically expanding, passages border on magnificence, while “Firefly In The Leg” depicts the feeling apparently related to butterflies in the stomach through the sequence of wordless middle-of-the-road vocalese, dark ambience, acoustic guitar lace and raga swirl. Still, nothing can prepare the audience for “The Buffalo Sings” where the cosmically unhinged sorrow is groomed for sprawling rapture, resulting in an almost hymnal choir and symphonic uplift. Quite a finale – but then, the entire album couldn’t be more staggering whether The Maker’s here or left the building.

*****

October 25, 2025