Daniel Bejar is restless. Besides being the sole continuing member of Destroyer through four increasingly accomplished albums, he’s popped up in the last year on debut discs by the New Pornographers, the Battles, and Vancouver Nights, variously contributing guitar, the odd vocal turn, or an offhandedly brilliant song or two. Days after finishing Destroyer’s new Streethawk: A Seduction (Misra), the long-time British Columbian pulled up stakes for Montreal by way of an extended visit to Europe, dissolved the band’s most stable incarnation, and responded to the unexpected success of the New Pornographers’ Mass Romantic (Mint) by, in his words, “not showing up.”

“By the time the big tour happened [with fellow Pornographers include belter Neko Case and ex-Zumpano frontman Carl Newman], I was living in Spain,” Bejar explains from his new home. “It’s not like any crazy scene. I wanted to try doing other things, and to do something different with Destroyer. Vancouver’s extremely tight-knit — we’ve got to loosen it a little.” His Houdini act couldn’t be better-timed if it were one of his own songs: Streethawk features more departures than an airline terminal on Memorial Day Weekend, from first cut (“You’ve got to move to stay alive”) to last (“There ought to be a train/A method of escape/That takes you away”).

Between Bejar’s words and his deeds, the disc almost begs to be read as autobiography. “The first Canadian review I read said that it was a song cycle about leaving the New Pornographers. But some of the songs actually predated [the previous Destroyer album] Thief.” A casual (or even careful) listener could easily get the wrong impression: like Thief, much of Streethawk uses its ambivalence toward music-biz machinations to address more-abstract issues of trust and personal integrity. “It’s just this golden bridge I’m burning,” he sings in “The Very Modern Dance.” “The Sublimation Hour” alternately accuses and pleads with an unnamed star-in-the-making (“Are those tears in your eyes as the wind cries enlargement?”), complete with glancing references to Canadian promotional magnate Sam Feldman and “Phony Beatlemania.” At the climactic moment, the band’s roiling, piano-heavy arrangement splits wide open, leaving the singer to point the finger back at himself: “There’s a rumor going ’round even Destroyers have a price.” It’s a convincing, critical piece of rock music that Bejar describes as “the Fall doing John Lennon,” though Armed Forces meets Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain might be more to the point.

Many Destroyer songs seem written out of hunches, with self-interrupting melodies and cryptic verbal touches whose significance lies more in the promise of meaning than its fulfillment. “Virgin with a Memory” begins with Werner Herzog (“Was it the movie or the making of Fitzcarraldo”) and ends on Mars, namechecking No Use for a Name and the Make-Up on the way. The album’s smoothest, saddest song goes by the impenetrable title “Farrar, Straus & Giroux (Sea of Tears).” Bejar (sort of) explains, “I had an idea way back of naming each song after a prominent publishing house. I wasn’t thinking of any particular book, I just remember thinking that it was a poetic-sounding name. That song is mostly about the idea of rejection in a life, how it can really do a number on you at the right time and place.”

Bejar’s slightly fey but emotionally engaged voice and the tight, detailed arrangements pull these songs back from the edge of vagueness. “The Bad Arts,” practically an album in itself, shows how far Destroyer have come since Bejar’s self-described “rag-tag four-track” beginnings: a brief acoustic intro gives way to a blue-eyed soul groove, multiple bridges à la early Springsteen, and a burst of Pro-Tools chaos before regrouping for a sardonically anthemic guitar solo and chorus: “You’ve got the spirit, don’t lose that feeling.”

In support of Streethawk, Bejar will perform this Saturday upstairs at the Middle East as part of his first-ever East Coast tour. He plans to keep playing under the Destroyer name despite changes in location and line-up, explaining, “I can tell this record was the end of the line because I have no idea what I’m going to do next. I know I want to do something different, but I don’t want anything permanent.”

Daniel Bejar will be joined by Jenny Toomey and her band this Saturday, May 26, upstairs at the Middle East. Call (617) 864-EAST.