Pedro the Lion

Item: Control
Author: Scott Hatch

Control

(2002)

Reviewed by Scott Hatch

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Label Jade Tree RecordsDecapolisMarch 2002

emo indie rock lo-fi singer-songwriter

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 rage, 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 fully 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 its 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.