David Bazan, the Seattle songwriter who shepherds Pedro the Lion through indie-rockdom, has long imbued his work with a similar paradox. A deeply religious man, he wrestles with questions about his faith, expending lyrical energy in an effort to reconcile man's earthly desires and flaws with the immutable laws set forth in the holy book. As he puts it in the wistfully rendered "The Fleecing," "I could buy you a drink/I could tell you all about it/I could tell you why I doubt it/and why I still believe."
That he does. In "I Do," amid throat-lumping guitar emissions, electronic twinkles, and a lissome beat, Bazan pits the cherished act of bringing life into the world against the realities of parenthood. "Now that my blushing bride has done what she was born to do/It's time to bury dreams and raise a son to live vicariously through," he sings with a nimble, lugubrious tenor.
But first-person emotionalizing and heavy-handed preaching aren't really the Bazan way of affecting hearts and minds. That doesn't mean he avoids passing judgment on the subjects of his fictional narratives. Alcoholics in particular get savaged in "Keep Swinging" and "The Poison," while the lasting damage of infidelity gets a clever allegorical treatment in "Arizona" ("Arizona curled up with California/Then she tried to hide the whole thing from New Mexico."). Ultimately, though, he doesn't feign to know the right path for anyone, himself included. It's his ongoing search for truth that keeps generating such thought-provoking and aurally gratifying music. Long may he roam. -- Michael Alan Goldberg
