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Pedro the Lion - Control
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Scott [Decapolis Music Staff]; Age: 28; Top 5 bands: Neutral Milk Hotel, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Flaming Lips, Simon and Garfunkel, Sonic Youth. Musical preferences: I like indie rock with an interesting lyrical approach and solid melody who aren't afraid to experiment
 While billed as a departure from the standard Pedro the Lion format, Control basically carries on in the same manner as the traditional cannon. Granted, the drum beats are increasingly complicated, there are more keyboard parts, and the album more fully rocks out than previous efforts. The influence of Bedhead's Transaction de Novo is still present, but much less than on It's Hard to Find a Friend; it's all okay, we love Pedro and that hasn't changed. The recording quality has fully solidified, with David Bazan taking some chances with the production, experimenting with odder sounds, stereo effects, and musical phrases that build, stop, and re-build, such as in "Indian Summer." The vocoder beginning for the re-recorded version of "Progress" is annoying, but, other than that, Control is a masterful work from a musical perspective.
I think the initial discussion of the record being a story is a bit detracting because these songs work entirely on their own. Tracks 1, 2, and 9 more overtly tell the story of unsure commitment, marital infidelity, and violently enacted jealous range, which is similar in story line to the previous full-length. The backdrop of the storyline is colored in a much more interesting way. While the conceptual theme can grow tiresome, and this would be the third time for a Pedro the Lion release, the rich variety of themes colors the storyline in a way that makes it full tolerable and interesting, succeeding in an area where Winners Never Quit failed, much like the initial Whole ep was able to succeed.
Taken in their individual context, these songs are about current issues and are asking important ethical questions about human nature. Bazan takes on corporate America in ways that the early political punk revolution could only dream. For example, "Penetration" tells a tale of corporate greed and downsizing, how a worker doesn't matter without success or the ability to generate sales, "If it isn't making dollars, it isn't making sense/ if you aren't moving units, then you're not worth the expense." Or, in "Indian Summer," the lyric "all the experts agree you ought to start them young/ that way they'll naturally like the taste of corporate cum." Bazan is no stranger to his harsh lyrical content or topics, as evidenced by the subject matter in It's Hard to Find a Friend or the follow up ep The Reason I Feel Secure or even the previous Jade Tree full-length, Winners Never Quit. This thread of a questioning cynicism runs throughout the body of work from Pedro the Lion.
The second track is fully rocking out of the starting gate, like the louder parts of Winners Never Quit, before settling back into a more typical Pedro pace. By the eighth track, "Second Best", my adrenaline is raging when I hear the almost metal guitar work and cymbal crashes rising from dirgeful beginnings in Pixies or death rock fashion. I'm waiting for the big explosion to happen at the end. Control ends in a thoroughly beautiful way with Bazan, perhaps wisely self-aware, perhaps only as story character summarizing the unfolded drama, admitting that "most everything turns to shit" before the angelic chorus ending.
I must confess that a few of the lyrics initially shocked me for a Pedro the Lion record, but there is a great intent behind these themes that ultimately succeeds. For instance, with the consideration of globalization and the events surrounding Seattle's World Trade Organization meeting (more directly affecting Bazan, being from Seattle), summarizing manipulation as "corporate cum" is one of the most realistic characterizations; the lyric is intentionally shocking, much like the actions of governments and multi-national organizations. Perhaps Control can also be described as a call to arms for the slacker indie subculture who are stereotypically more interested in Starbucks' coffee and hipster style and fashion than socio-political topics. Bazan's characters fall prey to the systems that they believe they control. This is the stuff that the Old Testament, Greek Tragedies, and Shakespeare are made of, and we have seem to forgotten the ideas as post-modern listeners and citizens.
For me, Winners Never Quit was a brilliant release musically and at least daring thematically, but it's re-listenability paled in comparison to the other Pedro the Lion records. Control becomes more interesting on repeated listens, not because of the obscured story line, but because of the thematic universality in so many of the songs. Pedro the Lion continues to poignantly remind us of the human condition in an all-too-dark-and-beautiful way.
Grade: A
Matt Modrich [Decapolis Music Staff]; Age: 20; Top 5 bands: Starflyer 59, Pedro the Lion, MxPx, Delirious, Joy Electric. Musical preferences: Music with melodic pop hooks.
This is probably one of the most depressing albums of the year. It’s even darker than David Bazan’s 2000 release "Winners Never Quit." Which is surprising considering that album was about a political candidate who bought his way into office and killed his wife because she was going to rat him out.
His latest project "Control" tells the story of a man who has an affair and is later killed by his wife. The story is fictional, but its themes hit home as Bazan incorporates powerful language such as graphic sexual references and profanity to make his point. The devastation that an affair causes a marriage, the greediness of corporate America, children who are becoming progressively worse than their parents, the futility of trying to avoid death and the meaningless of life-these are just some of the bleak pictures that "Control" paints of modern life.
As for its musical content, this is Bazan’s most complex production yet. The musical simplicity of previous albums has been almost completely abandoned. In fact, he has even incorporated new sounds by adding a keyboard to "Indian Summer" and a voice-effect to "Progress."
Quality musical production is new for Bazan, considering his profound lyrics on previous recordings have been delivered through basic lo-fi songs. Musically, this album seems miles away from those records, except for "Progress" which is reminiscent of "It’s Hard to Find a Friend" as it uses simple hooks along with great one-liners like "Your father drank a little, you’re on liver number two."
Nevertheless, these songs are just as well-written as before and they also achieve Bazan’s purpose in creating an appropriately ominous accompaniment to the story’s plot. "Rapture" rocks out with Foo Fighter’s like energy as it describes the man celebrating his infidelity. "Indian Summer" conveys false optimism as the poppy chorus says "God bless the Indian summer," when the man must tell his family that he lost his job. "Second Best" also hits its mark with sonic intensity as it conveys the importance of not settling for second best like the man returning to the affair after he’s been caught. "Priests and Paramedics" is also a darkly ironic song, especially when the lyrics of its catchy chorus are read aloud. "You’re gonna die, we’re all gone die. Could be twenty years, could be tonight. Lately I have been wondering why we go to so much trouble to postpone the unavoidable and prolong the pain of being alive."
The last song "Rejoice" is an enigma, because it seems to be self-contradictory. "Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everything were meaningless? But everything is so meaningful and most everything turns to s***, rejoice." But perhaps the meaning of "Rejoice" and "Control" will become clear with the next album, which Bazan says is supposed to bring redemption to this tragic tale of moral decay.
Grade: B
Average Grade: A-
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