“The ocean she’s much deeper than I / But the moon still pushes and pulls the tide,” Elliot Douglas, also known as M.A.G.S., the LA genre-melding artist by way of Buffalo, New York, sings to close his latest album Destroyer, out on Smartpunk Records last Friday. Everything he puts to tape is magic, but each release he seems to embrace a new aesthetic, and his latest has him pushing pretty hard in the emo direction. The genre works like clay in his adept hands, however, and he keeps you on your toes, always adding satisfying changes in sound and feel, so that it is a super fresh work of art.

He says that he hopes that this album offers light in the darkness for his listeners, and Destroyer is an admittedly hardcore title, with a picture of a ravaging cyclone storm on the cover, that could make anyone shiver. It is an album to shiver to, but as the confident alternative rock communicates, there is the feeling of overcoming as well. “If things get bad enough / We’ll see if we can make our escape,” he sings on the opening track.

Though it finds a place solidly in the emo that came before it, the song writing is compelling from start to finish. It becomes a sort of game to tally all of the unique changes that happen in a four or so minute song, and he’s a master at suspense and resolution, sonically and lyrically. There’s a bit of his funk and hip hop influence in the record, though it is not prevalent on this record. This record seems to be a chance for Douglas to deal with the angst of life head on, even screaming his lyrics in a number of songs.

“I don’t wanna know / But I can’t look away.” It is a bold and cathartic record that demands multiple listens. And if his old fans don’t like the new direction that he’s going in, there are plenty of new fans I think he’ll make on this record. One of the most affecting songs is the guitar shredding “Red Sky,” which references the storm on the front of the album. “I will sing my innocent melody / I will / I’m in the eye / Chaos surrounding me / I’m still.” There is chaos and a sacred relief in the album, that will certainly soundtrack some people’s hardest times with grace.

Order the album HERE