David Bazan - Curse Your Branches

Let me start this review with one important point: I am not sure that anything David Bazan does will ever, ever exceed his work with/as Pedro the Lion on the album "Control." Also, on a similar note, I've always he works best in the context of midtempo, minor key songs. And when I read some of the reviews of "Curse Your Branches" (which I just heard for the first time), I expected to hear the same tense, heartbreaking melodies. What I ended up getting was something a little more...let's just say "complicated."

As far lyrics go, this album is completely crushing. In recent interviews, David Bazan has admitted to losing a great deal of faith in the Bible and God. For someone who's songwriting career has been filled with musings on those two things, this brings an impact that's a little difficult to swallow. Don't worry--God is still in the songs. In fact, I think every song brings Him up. Except Bazan is much more suspicious of Him now, and asking challenging, arrogant questions ("did You push us when we fell?"), which he admits he has no right to ask, which only makes the sting that more painful. He criticizes himself in a number of ways too--his alcoholism, his shortcomings as a father and husband, and, sometimes, all around bastard. The last song, "In Stitches", he confesses that his drinking is an attempt to escape his acknowledgment of God, and mentions walks with his daughter, 'who is lately full of questions about You.' Your heart just broke a little, didn't it?

Musically, this record isn't what I'd expected. The opener, "Hard To Be" is a great, midtempo, minor key ditty with a synth line running through the breaks between choruses and verses. "Bless the Mess" is next; a song about drinking and doubting and daddying. Let me clarify: a pop song about drinking and doubting and daddying. Major key, uptempo. With terribly depressing lyrics. And for as much as it caught me off guard, it works. Darn it, it works. This is a good thing, considering that most of the record follows in this sort of pattern, pairing almost dancy pop songs with uncomfortably honest lyrics about David Bazan and all the crap he's been dealing with lately. There are a few exceptions, though, where he pulls the metronome down and returns to the minor key melodies he's spoiled many of us on--notably, "Hard To Be," "Curse Your Branches," "Harmless Sparks" (the only song somewhat in the tradition of Bazan's brilliant acoustic ballads with early Pedro) "Lost My Shape," and "In Stitches."

All in all, a startlingly naked and vulnerable record from a songwriter who's discography I've been largely ignorant of since 2004.