Progress - EP

Seattle's Pedro the Lion offer up a brand single on the heels of their second critically acclaimed full-length Winners Never Quit (Jade Tree). Since the band's start, David Bazan has polished his knack for the simple and syrupy while perfecting his personalized mix of lo/hi-fi home recording. At the center of it all are the songs; stories crafted like a haunting novel, carried on melodies that stick in your mind like dreams you're both regretful and relieved to wake from.

With Progress, Bazan gives the story of a Kansas City suicide at the roots of a family tree reaching into the future with dust-free dinette sets and self-making beds. The effect is like a Bukowski's 'Ham on Rye' for the kids of the technology boom. In contrast, Oakland's Buchen contributes A Guitar for Janie, a kids story of air guitars, nasty falls, and broken, swallowed teeth. The play between the innocence of the story and the chilling sense of failure in the songs lays out a timeline from the 1970s to the technology charged future. Stretching triumphantly over that line is the same problem: We've always been guilty and scared to admit it.