David Bazan

Curse Your Branches

(Barsuk)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

Curse Your Branches is powered by one of the most compelling personal backstories of any album in 2009.  As the leader of Pedro the Lion, David Bazan was a role model of major importance to a certain slice of Christian music lovers:  the kind that frequented indie record stores, maybe swore or drank or lusted a little too much, and openly grappled with their faith from time to time.  Bazan may have been a bit of a rebel, but he was still one of them.Years passed, Pedro broke up, and eventually Bazan finished grappling – and pinned his previous beliefs to the mat.  As a kid, he saw music as a crusade, as a vehicle for conversion.  As an adult, he’s come of the closet as an agnostic.  Some people said it was a long time coming, citing his public questioning spread out over a band’s entire discography.  Others didn’t take the news so well.  Still others chose to interpret the evidence to fit their already-established beliefs (and probably have a lot of practice doing so).

It’s hard to dissect Curse Your Branches without breaking it into two pieces.  Lyrically, it absolutely ranks among his best work.  Countless lines come from the speakers sounding like either open wounds or fresh revelations.   Bazan doesn’t seem to be the type who makes clean breaks, and his separation with his Father is indeed a messy divorce.  There are a lot of direct appeals – and accusations – sent God’s way, interspersed with pull-no-punches observations from Bazan’s personal life.  It becomes clear pretty quickly that Curse Your Branches is something of a breakup album, just more about boy-Creator than boy-girl.  On the lovely, sparse closer “In Stitches,” Bazan addresses a “you” that’s fallen out of his life.  “All of this lethal drinking is to hopefully forget about you,” he sings glumly.  Later, he admits that he can’t seem to shake free, haunted by memories, reminded of them “on long walks with my daughter, who is lately full of questions about you.”  He sings “about you” again, cracking into falsetto the second time.  It’s the most emotionally volatile moment on an emotionally volatile record.  Stripped of context, it could easily be entirely about an ex-wife… but then the next verse is about “you” and Job.

The lyrical content is so high-voltage that it doesn’t need a whole lot of layers; if Bazan read these songs at a bookstore, they’d still carry some of their weight.  There are a few too many flourishes; for instance, the churchy organ on “Bless This Mess” feels a little overt, and the roadhouse guitars of “When We Fell” almost undercut the song’s power.  Of course, there’s some mileage to be had from the juxtaposition of happy melodies with deadly serious lyrics, but from a strictly hook-based perspective, Curse Your Branches isn’t Bazan’s best work.  The best songs embrace the melancholy and the gravity of the situation.  So while I can’t quite recommend Curse Your Branches as one of my favorite or one of the best albums of 2009, it surely ranks among the boldest and most memorable.