Pedro the Lion - Winners Never Quit
(Jade Tree)
In general, concept albums do nothing but annoy me. However, singer/songwriter David Bazan's latest album, Winners Never Quit, doesn't annoy me at all; in fact, I was really amazed at how successfully he uses the idea of a concept album to tell a compelling story of the changing lives of two brothers (one the family trophy, one the black sheep).
I have the tendency to not listen to lyrics or read booklets until I have listened to an album at least 4 or so times. After getting a feel for the music and melodies, I start to let the lyrics and meanings sink in (a habit I have had since Junior High when I was turned off by so many bands because of bad lyrics). And, since the songs do stand well on their own and don't immediately draw attention to themselves as being part or needing to be part of a greater whole, it took me a while to realize that Winners Never Quit was even a concept album.
David Bazan sets the perfect mood with every aspect of Winners Never Quit. On the album, he gives special attention to each and every little detail, giving it multiple layers that slowly unravel and unveil
themselves with each listen. He perfectly combines simple, beautiful acoustic ballads and intense, unsettling rock songs with lyrics that give both the music and the words more depth than either have on their own. The tempos and instruments he matches with each important section of the story is, in itself, amazing, but he even takes it further with the attention that he gives to the lengths of space between different songs and other details that most songwriters would never even think about.
Along with the music, David also sets the perfect mood with his basic album design (done by Steve Ruetschle and Jeremy Dean). The album's simple yet intriguing packaging--solid white paper with cropped close-up black and white drawings of a questionable briefcase exchange, a man holding a gun to his own head, a man forcefully grabbing a woman's hand holding a telephone, and a man in handcuffs, and the simple statement typed at the top of the insert "a good person is some one who hasn't been caught"--gives the listener a uneasy feeling, to say the least, at the onset of the album.
"A Mind of Her Own" is, in my opinion, the best song on the album. It is the climax of the story, and the lyrics and music match perfectly to create one of the most disturbing and intense songs I recall in the last
few years. Just as the music starts to reel and spin out of control, he sings "Oh look who it is...it's my supportive wife and she thinks she's going to squeal. Hey where do you think you're going? Don't you walk away from me. You put down that telephone, you're not calling anyone."
If you are a Pedro the Lion fan, chances are you already own this, but if you don't, rush out and get it. If you are not a fan, this could be the album that converts you.
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