The best way to describe the critical response to Destroyer’s ninth full-length album, “Trouble in Dreams,” may be unobtrusive. The quiet approval offered by the indie rock staple’s community of fans seems awfully reserved considering the album is its finest work since 2001’s “Streethawk: A Seduction.”

Lead singer and essential one-man show Dan Bejar croons over acoustic strumming on opener “Blue Flower/Blue Flame.” Following the glamorous pomposity of the band’s 2006 “Rubies,” it’s hard not to perceive this muted entrance as a deliberate attempt to scale things back.  

Of course, these first few moments become more of a foil than anything else. Its graduated folk sound lulls listeners into such a sense of security that only at the end of the song do we realize we have no idea where we’ve ended up. Bejar’s signature songwriting is as discursive as it is packed with self-conscious flamboyance, allowing rhythms and narratives to lurch into one another like artfully mismanaged dominoes.

It’s a credit to his overarching talent, then, that we never have to question where we’re going. Following “Blue Flower/Blue Flame” is a pair of power pieces reminiscent of “Myriad Harbor,” one of those aforementioned songs Bejar wrote under The New Pornographers moniker.

The first of these, “Dark Leaves Form a Thread,” seems crafted both by and for the lone walker, building on exploding drums well-suited to those looking to dutifully march across campus at odd hours of the night. “The State,” meanwhile, displays a knack for conflating the personal and the political, evoking distaste for its titular establishment via lover’s resent.

The band successfully segues from snarl to effusive ballads on “Foam Hands,” one of the purest compositions by the band yet. It relies on subtle differentiations in Bejar’s pronunciation of a central lyric to validate its first-person wallowing.

Twin centerpieces “My Favorite Year” and “Shooting Rockets” sprawl to six and eight minutes, respectively. “My Favorite Year” reconciles its author’s dueling personalities in a tender wrestling match between the acoustic, demo-like quality of Bejar’s early work and the electric noodling of his last few albums.

The last half of “Trouble in Dreams” carries what energy is left over from these epics with pronounced ease, climaxing on the fireworks display of “Plaza Trinidad” with a marriage of pounding piano and expressive howling. Bejar’s dramatic flair — undeniably the star on “Rubies” — resurfaces with full force in the album’s twilight. The effect is gratifying precisely because it’s been staved off for so long.

"Trouble in Dreams" by Destroyer recieved three and a half out of four stars.