Pedro the Lion

• Phoenix [Polyvinyl, 2019] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Phoenix [Polyvinyl, 2019]
Whether praising Christ or excavating angst, David Bazan has always been a natural-born depressive--his Christmas album does "Jingle Bells" as a dirge. But on his first Pedro the Lion record since 2004, recollections of his Arizona boyhood are marked by a forgiveness that testifies to his spiritual development: the air-conditioned model home the family toured on special Sunday afternoons, his parents sharing the piano bench for evening service, skateboard savings squandered on candy and soda pop, the shy fifth-grade classmate he slighted so he'd fit in himself. And if the sexual taboos built into his church training are worth resenting to this day, "Black Canyon," where some poor sufferer kills himself by jumping in front of an 18-wheeler on the freeway, is for the saved and the unsaved alike, its hero a female firefighter brave enough to face her own worst memories as she shares the suicide's last moments. A-