did you push us when we fell?
Please Baby Please was only a glimpse well over a year ago, of now fully- furnished solo record Curse Your Branches out this September on Barsuk. Familiar and safe somewhere inside my brain where the subtle nuances of these stripped down alone-at-the-microphone tracks, along with the countless versions of Harmless Sparks, and the Live at the Grey Eagle God Bless (now entitled Bless this Mess). The prolific Bazan has achieved the highest badge of bias in my books, that regardless of what I truly thought, I knew I’d enjoy it, or at least learn. A darling reputation like that is perhaps the ultimate mark of artistic freedom. To create authentically, without the obtrusives worries that your fans will like it, because they will. Admittedly, it took me a few listens to get this album, mostly because all of the extra layers really took away from the lyrics. Case in point: Please Baby Please- there’s an island feel, a definite sense of cheese that Bazan is unapologetic about. Otherwise, lyrically it is golden, it seems he’s returned to his Pedro the Lion days of Control, where doubt in the Lord seeps from every song and characteristic pessimism alludes to the idea that however self-aware, age doesn’t make the big questions any easier. This was especially clear in When We Fell where he begins with a damning question, “with the threat of hell hanging over my head like a halo, I was made to believe in a couple of beautiful truths, that eventually had the effect of completely unraveling a powerful curse put on me by you. When you set the table, when you chose the scale did you write a riddle that you knew they would fail?”
I can only hope that his next release won’t take quite as long as three years. However Curse Your Branches will hold me over for at least another year or so.
David Bazan- Curse Your Branches
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David Bazan- When We Fell
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David Bazan- Harmless Sparks
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