Sic Semper Tyrannis

Pedro the Lion Whole (1997)

A Random CD Review from the Stutzman Memorial Library
Whole by Pedro the Lion (1997)

The randomizer spit out # 417 today, which correlates to the album Whole by Pedro the Lion. Pedro, (basically David Bazan’s brainchild), is one of my favorite artists to whom I never seem to listen. I know that last sentence didn’t make any sense. How could it be a favorite if you never listen to it?

I’ve got several PTL Cds. This is the first one he released, I think. I found his lo-fi, indie rock mellow-ness to be soothing when I first heard this stuff. It was simple. Unadorned. But it wasn’t that “guy-and-a-guitar” sensitive, singer-songwriter tripe that the last sentence makes it sound like. There were drums and bass, actual melody lines that stood up over time, but it still sounded like it was recorded in a kitchen.

Lyrically, this is the sound of a depressed Christian.

My first exposure to this music came at a time when I was in college, willing to give music made by Christian artists more of a chance than before or since. Before that, “Christian music” meant gratingly-polished, annoying three-chord pablum, free of any type of “soul” or technique, spouting doctrine and stuck in a mid-to-late eighties production aesthetic—pretty much the opposite of this PTL stuff, (with the possible exception of technique-there’s nothing too daring, harmonically-speaking on this record.)

I remember that time of my life both fondly and with a little bit of chagrin at how “churchy” I wanted to be. And that embarrassment of things past is probably why this disc has sat on the shelf for awhile. I guess I kinda thought that I wasn’t the same person who bought it about eight years ago and I couldn’t possibly enjoy it. But that’s not the case. I was playing this in the car no more than a week ago. It still does what it’s supposed to do—gets me thinking about me, God, church, life…

posted by Mike @ 2:57 PM