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LOW AND PEDRO THE LION
ICONIC AND INDIE
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At their Somerville Theatre show last Saturday night, Pedro the Lion mastermind David Bazan reminisced about having played the same venue with the Minnesota-based slowcore trio Low. He then imagined a future where like-minded indie-rock bands form the type of musical nucleus country performers and Lawrence Welk alumni have in Branson, Missouri, settling down with their kids and drawing legions of devotees to their shows. It’s an amusing pipe dream. But his vision was in keeping with the sold-out show’s mood. Fans knit, sketched, and read between sets, serenely content, before rousing themselves to cheer and banter with the bands between and during songs. Pedro the Lion opened the night with a taut, nimble performance drawn largely from their 2004 album Achilles Heel (Jade Tree). The fourth religiously reflective and politically confrontational album self-recorded by the Seattle-based Bazan under the Pedro the Lion banner is as dark as ever in its themes, but it sounds lighter and lovelier thanks to his newly expanded vocal range. He was backed by long-time collaborator T.W. Walsh on guitar and keyboards, Ken Maluri on bass, and Frank Lenz on drums. Tight and fluid, they filled out Bazan’s spare songs as he crooned wry lyrics, his face twitching intently during the lilting, spiritually minded "Foregone Conclusions" and the darkly funny "Keep Swinging." A highlight was their fiery, guitar-drenched cover of Neil Young’s "Revolution Blues," for which Low guitarist Alan Sparhawk joined them. The tentativeness of Low’s 90-minute career-spanning set was surprising when you consider their decade as masters of ambient indie rock. But they still painted fervent, often lovely, soundscapes. Sparhawk played with particular zeal, creating a kaleidoscope of guitar sounds, from the gentle twang of the set-opening "Death of a Salesman" to the portentous squall of "Monkey," both from their new The Great Destroyer (Sub Pop). The new songs, including the heartfelt "When I Go Deaf," on which Sparhawk and his wife, percussionist Mimi Parker, harmonized elegantly while Zak Sally added subtle bass accents, unfurled a familiar mix of subtle hush and kinetic flare-ups. But some of the older material sounded under-rehearsed, particularly during a sloppy yet playful encore. Both bands nonetheless consolidated their now iconic sounds, suggesting that perhaps they’ve already created a reliable — if mobile — destination for smart, heartfelt indie rock.
BY SARAH TOMLINSON
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