Pitchfork

At any house party, at any given time, there's a person who has isolated himself in one of the rooms, alone with a guitar. Sure, there's a revolving fanbase whose ranks are refreshed by the ever-circulating mass of people listening in hushed awe, but the only constant is the guitar player... and his is the loneliest of lives. His music is considered a "buzzkill," as it generally reflects his disillusionment with the politics of the social world and will temporarily permeate the euphoric ambience of any who dare enter the room for a song. Somewhere along the way, David Bazan made the decision that life outside that room just wasn't worth the toll it took on the soul. Now he permanently resides there, subtly sermonizing to any who'll listen.

Throughout the course of Pedro the Lion's career, Bazan has kept his arrangements relatively sparse, and The Only Reason I Feel Secure certainly didn't make any attempt to break from that tradition upon its initial Made in Mexico release. The EP, comprised of five songs dealing with "criticism" of all things, first introduced Bazan's self-defeating love for conceptualist departure which would be fully realized on his 30-minute opus Winners Never Quit. Now that the band has jumped ship from Made in Mexico, their back catalog is getting the Jade Tree treatment, complete with repackaging and, in the case of The Only Reason I Feel Secure, the inclusion of a few bonus tracks. Though the EP's re-release certainly won't galvanize the industry, it remains the definitive litmus test for those unfamiliar with Pedro's Eitzel-esque song structures and valium-induced contemplations on life.

Much fuss is unnecessarily made of Bazan's Christian leanings. Luckily, Pedro the Lion have always been reasonable, lyrically speaking. Rather than openly addressing the Christian God, they opt to lament through ambiguity which occasionally yields some awkwardly worded sentiments. Still, there's something disarming, even from an objectivist's standpoint, about the disparity and wide-eyed inquiry in lyrics like, "I hear that you don't change/ How do you expect to keep up with the trends/ You won't survive the information age." This, coupled with the somber arrangement of "Letter from a Concerned Follower," makes for one of the disc's better moments. If not for former labelmate Damien Jurado's similarly charred pipes and thematic offerings, Pedro the Lion could easily escape on the potency of their lyrics. However, it seems that everything Bazan tries to accomplish on The Only Reason has already been done before, albeit better. So if you consider yourself a fan of the Lion, do yourself a favor and go pick up Jurado's Rehearsals for Departure. Oh, and pretty much anything by American Music Club.

Ex-Pitchforker Zach Hooker gave The Only Reason I Feel Secure a slightly overwhelming 8.4 upon its initial release. Purism be damned, but there's something that just doesn't bode well about an EP that boasts a whopping total of three new tracks (one being a live interpretation of "Invention," a song found earlier on the record), a lyrics sheet, and an inflated price. The slightly abridged The Only Reason is still widely available and isn't nearly as much of a strain on your pocketbook. Both make for the perfect accompaniment to that 4:00am disillusionment that has occasionally claimed us all. Unfortunately, such moments are few and far between, and Bazan's output just doesn't sport the same underlying complexity as contemporaries Red House Painters, Will Oldham, and other such artists whose music is often denoted by meditations in the same mood.

Pedro the Lion hail from Nathaniel Hawthorne's America. This is what wayward Puritans would headbang to. Satan has invariably given us greater musical gifts, but for those introverts facing more exalted theological issues, The Only Reason I Feel Secure fits like a tailored rosary. Of course, life back then was stark and simple, and the Lion make no qualms about the utter incomplexity of their work. Though it cuts down on extraneous and unnecessary accompaniment, it also makes for a complete lack of surprise when Bazan unsheathes the old verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge formula song after song. It's funny, though, that emo, a genre obviously begat by Beelzebub himself, finds so many of its contributions inspired by the word of God.