Barsuk Records(2009)
Even as a militant secular humanist, I have always held David Bazan in high esteem. I attribute this fact to his never irrationally doctrinal lyrics. Bazan has always dealt with the less attractive aspects of life, like divorce and suicide, with poignant realism that elicits an inevasible melancholy. Though "God" and "Jesus" have always been occasional invocations, they are never made in praise or supplication, tending to appear in the context of desperate futility. (And he's never been too prudish to refrain from dropping an f-bomb or focusing "his high hopes on a vagina or two.")
Curse Your Branches shows the futility hit a breaking point. While he renounced Christianity around the time of Pedro the Lion's Winners Never Quit, this marks the first record where Bazan can be heard openly criticizing the constituents of his past faith. At a few tracks in, the skepticism could feasibly be interpreted as a mocking of Doubting Thomases. But by the time "When We Fell" plays, all jokes are off: "You knew what would happen and made us just the same. Then you, my Lord, can take the blame."
Lines like these provide me with a sort of personal affirmation, not to mention a giant shit-eating grin. Yet, for Bazan such a conviction brings about severe consequences. A little knowledge of his backstory - being married to a devout Christian intent on raising their daughter in church - reveals a quandary that clearly influences much of the discouragement found on Curse Your Branches. On "Bearing Witness", Bazan dispenses with the old fables and offers his child an invaluable piece of rational thought: "Though it may alienate your family and blur the lines of your identity, let go of what you know and honor what exists. Daughter, that's what bearing witness is."
It's an absurd world. Every time I watch the news or pick the paper, humans are damning and killing one another over discrepancies in archaic belief systems. Each time, a bit of my sanity dissipates - to the point where I start to believe it is actually me who is delusional. It's records like this one that bring me just enough resolve to know I'm not completely marooned. For every Cat Stevens, there is a David Bazan. Well, that's pretty delusional. But maybe one day it won't be.
(May Jeremy Enigk be the next to fall from grace.)
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