David Bazan

Although David Bazan was all the buzz last summer when I was at Cornerstone, I paid the buzz no heed since I’d never heard of him and had only vaguely heard of his former band, Pedro the Lion.  However, enough people mentioned to me the power of his latest album, commonly referred to as his “break-up with God album,” that I purchased it.  In the Chicago Reader, Jessica Hopper wrote,

Bazan’s Curse Your Branches, due September 1 [2009] on Barsuk, is a visceral accounting of what happened after that. It’s a harrowing breakup record—except he’s dumping God, Jesus, and the evangelical life. It’s his first full-length solo album and also his most autobiographical effort: its drunken narratives, spasms of spiritual dissonance, and family tensions are all scenes from the recent past.

Bazan and his current band are powerful in concert, as witnessed by Chris Scharen and me (and a couple hundred others, including not a few Porchians) last night at the Turf Club in St. Paul.

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