Pedro the Lion
Fri July 9
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W. Burnside
The whole Christian/Beard thing that Pedro the Lion has going is a dirty lie. It’s a cheap excuse; a hanging nail that music writers can’t help but get their sleeves caught on: “Look at the band! It’s a guy with a beard singing songs about Jesus!” I mean, it’s just so easy. Add a couple words like “introspective” and “emotional” and you have your precious word count. But of course, there is so much more to the David Bazan + Beard + Jesus equation. We can start with the fact that nowadays, he’s clean-shaven.
With Achilles Heel, full-length album number four for the band which is more or less just Bazan, there is little reason to mention Pedro’s past. While the cross might still hang from Bazan’s neck, it’s less of an albatross these days. He’s a relaxed performer who beams with the sort of confidence not found in the characters in his songs. And, of course, they are just that–characters. Troubled souls, cheating husbands and various downtrodden works of fiction whose stories Bazan will voice for a handful of minutes before moving on to the next. As a songwriter, Bazan has never been more precise and simultaneously more scattered than on Achilles Heel. His past records were conceptual works in family relations and marital woes–start-to-finish albums that acted as storyboards for a cast of characters who lived from song to song.
These days, Bazan is flirting with fresh topics and a newfound sense of musical creation that is not burdened by topic. With this freedom comes numerous moments of clarity. His voice still mumbles along with the same even temperance and sly wit as before, but with Achilles Heel, his highs are beaming and positive, while his lows are soul-crushingly dismal. If there is any lesson to be learned here, it’s that you shouldn’t doubt the motives of a man–Christian or secular, bearded or clean-shaven–who sings, in a defeated drawl, this closing line: “My old man always swore that hell would have no flame/ Just a front-row seat to watch your true love pack her things and drive away.”