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Page 17

CRITICAL EAR

Album: Curse Your Branches

Artist: David Bazan

Label: Barsuk

Sound: Derek Webb, Fleet Foxes

The band Pedro the Lion (more or less David Bazan) were darlings of the Christian indie scene, partly for their music, but particularly for being honest about faith and the Christian life, warts and all. But singer Bazan became increasingly vocal and erratic, partly due to a problem with alcohol. He says on this album that he "used to sound like a prophet" but increasingly felt like a "salesman". Now he has given up the booze and "repented" of his faith, and this album records the painful process and aftermath. It's a beautifully crafted album, made perhaps more compelling by the fact that Bazan played most of the instruments himself.

Bazan
David Bazan: Curse Your Branches
While opener Hard to Be has weird effects and piano sitting between Keane and Thom Yorke, most of the album takes a folk and country vibe, with warm, ringing acoustic guitar like on Derek Webb's Mockingbird, or a deliberate crawl as with Red House Painters, with cooing backing vocals somewhere near Fleet Foxes. Sometimes it ventures towards the country-rock of the Stones (like on Derek Webb's The Ringing Bell). The lyrics, though, are so painfully raw that they are difficult to listen to, dealing, as they do, with Bazan's disillusioned agnosticism and the effects of alcoholism on his wife and children. While there are plenty of Christian albums detailing the transition from spiritual rags to riches, it's a rarity to hear such a personal account of the loss of faith set to music. Interestingly, the "you" he addresses in these songs is inevitably a God he no longer thinks exists. But his issue seems to be with a vengeful OT God, the story of the Fall (the interpretation of which divides Christians anyway), and strict American religion. Interestingly, nowhere does he mention the core of the gospel, and Jesus.

ReviewStars44/5

OK, Nick has done a curtain call. It won't last.

Nick Mattiske

{moscomment}
Last Updated ( Sunday, 06 December 2009 )
 
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