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Pedro The Lion | Control

For those of us who occasionally enjoy the darker side.
CD, Jade Tree

Tekst: Douglas Gush

Publicatiedatum: 03 oktober 2002

"I think we are both getting older . . . this might not work out."

If there is one fact about Pedro The Lion, it is that you do not want to listen to any of their discs if you just left your girlfriend. I am a confessed depress-ophile, and listening to the PTL collection can usually take care of the shakes I get if I haven't heard the Cure or the Smiths in a while. My friend TJ and I used to sit in a car during lunch period in high school, eat lunch, and absorb the depressing songs of Toad The Wet Sprocket and the Cure. I look back at those days and can almost visualize our "depression batteries" recharging as we sat there. We would talk about why girls are out to screw you over and question why we need them so much. They were not the best and most healthy lunch periods, but they surely seemed like they mattered. I have since shaved my moustache and come to the realization that girls will always cause heartache, but alcohol recharges your "depression batteries" faster than lunch period "depression club" meetings.

David Bazan can make you feel like crap, force you to question your faith, and cause some heavy drinking. Oh, it is that good! I have been listening to Pedro The Lion for a few years now, and the one thing that has stayed consistent is the way David Bazan can weave a song. He creates some of the most intriguing characters in the same amount of time that it takes some people to swallow bleach. I would compare him to songwriters like Bright Eyes or Elliot Smith, but a bit more real.

Control is the most mature and most rocking of his discs so far, without a doubt. The subject matter has taken a different, more "elder statesman" path than his other material. The characters on this disc experience lustful adultery, get fired from long-term middle management, and learn the joy of giving up. Ready to become a monk yet? The seventh track, Rehearsal, revisits the theme of infidelity (which has become a trend of PTL — David, I am sure she loves you) and the absurdity of a lying wife who has already been caught: "Darling / You are so unoriginal / You'll see / That I can be so unoriginal / Just like you." Indian Summer is the tale of an upper class family who was bred to believe that life is easy and beautiful, as long as you are wealthy: "Thanks in part to Mother Nature / It will never rain again / It should do wonders for the GNP."

Some of my friends who cannot get into Pedro The Lion pass Bazan off as a depressed, simple, boring songwriter. They have a hard time finding beauty in the discussion of real things like religion, love, life, materialism, and growing older. It could just be that they just don't want to believe that those things matter to them. Well, we are all getting older and fatter everyday . . . and some of us are going to lose our hair. Control is a great effort, and I would suggest it for those of us who occasionally enjoy the darker side.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/pedro-the-lion/control/1913/
Meer Pedro The Lion op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/pedro-the-lion