Phoenix

Phoenix is wondrous. [Feb-Apr 2019, p.110]

Phoenix is much more than what floats to its surface, and far greater than the sum of its parts. It's an album of stories.

As always, it’s Bazan’s words that bring people to the table and keep seated. Rolling out of his mouth with no real set sense of intonation or melody, Bazan beautifully interweaves pinpoint specific tales of his churchgoing suburban youth with greater universal ideas of truth and meaning, all wrapped in his dark wit and humor.

It’s characterized by both futile resignation and hopeful nostalgia. That’s a generous way to write, and Phoenix stands as a complex, giving record backed by some of Pedro the Lion’s finest musical compositions.

Richly nuanced and always intelligent, fifteen years have passed since the last album, and much like Bazan prior to the record’s conception, its release feels like a homecoming.

Even as Bazan sings about returning as a stranger to a place he once knew intimately, he’s doing it by way of a musical persona he has reanimated. There’s an appealing symmetry there: even if you can’t quite go home again, you can always come full circle.

Bazan's voice is more full and powerful than ever, and the return to familiar writing processes pays off. Every note from every instrument expertly weaves together with pristine, yet organic movement, as if Bazan was a Baroque composer for string quartet.

His two band mates this time, Erik Walters of Globe and Silver Torches plus NW session drummer Sean Lane (who has played with Bazan solo and Silver Torches and many other artists), have never been associated with Pedro the Lion before. However, with Bazan on bass, they make a sound that is deeply familiar, rough-hewn and rambunctious with big bright guitar chords that punctuate moody, sharply observed narratives.

This is no desperate grab at nostalgia, then, rather a chronicle of important personal moments reexamined through the lens of time. [Feb 2019, p.30]

It shows an artist no longer caught in his own artistic web, but someone watching his past selves struggle from a higher vantage point.

Bazan sings better than he ever has on Phoenix, his voice round and worn with intricacy from years of use, like a hiking stick toted in the same hand for a thousand miles.

As Bazan embraces his current self by looking at his former, we learn the story of his life, and by the time the 14 tracks of Phoenix are over the picture is clear.

Older, wiser, and still passionate, Phoenix is a worthy continuation of Pedro the Lion's legacy with just enough spirit to set it apart from his 2010s solo work.

There's still a lot of soul-searching at mournful tempos, but reconnecting to his roots has made for a fine set of songs. [Feb 2019, p.93]