Trevor Montgomery is Lazarus

Have you ever listened to a band or artist for quite a few years and never realize just how few people actually listen to them? I guess I always just assumed Trevor Montgomery had a strong following. He's on an incredible label(Temporary Residence), has been a member of influential bands(Tarental, The Drift) and is immensely talented. Unfortunately, even if you have everything going for you, people don't always listen. I am going to try and change that.

Songs for an Unborn Sun is what started it all. With the help of fellow San Francisco musician Marty Anderson(Dilute, Okay, Jacques Kopstein), Trevor crafts an album that is agonizingly sad yet surprisingly hopeful. Marty's elderly bug-like voice accompanying most of the songs adds a fragile nature to each track. This creates a mood that makes you feel as if the entire structure is going to completely break down at any moment. This is an album about loss, suffering and overcoming burdens.

Like Trees We Grow Up to Be Satellites replaces Marty's vocals and the overall sadness of the album, with female backing vocals, uplifting piano hooks and an overall warmer sound. Cheerful, fast and infectious songs create an atmosphere that is polar opposite of his debut. This is an album about acceptance, forgiveness and hopefulness.

Both of these records are absolute masterpieces and deserve any praise and/or recognition that they receive. Listen, love and support this man.

Songs for an Unborn Sun

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Like Trees We Grow Up to Be Satellites

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David Bazan - Curse Your Branches

Tell someone, anyone, your favorite musician or, hell, your least favorite (so it's easier to hate), to write an album on topics like the the fall of man, original sin, damnation, hell, and predestination, with occasional references to God, and, go ahead, throw in that he/she/they should include 'curse' in the title, and you might get a few curses thrown your way. Not exactly the subject matter for a highly listenable album, unless the musician you give this challenge to is David Bazan (or maybe Sufjan Stevens). If you know anything about Bazan (formerly Pedro the Lion), you shouldn't be surprised. This is the same man who managed (as Pedro the Lion) to make an album almost exclusively about cheating and loss into an album that all the kids were talking about, listening to, and even singing along to (Control). An affair to replay. Bazan, again, takes the plight of man and makes it manageable, in addition to the source of some damn good songs, without sounding like the kid front-and-center of religious studies 101 or the hobo on the corner screaming, 'why, God, why?'.

Drawing you into the cage that is his voice - rough on the edges, a little dark, but hollow enough to hide inside, Bazan makes you feel safe, and for a moment a little warm. Simple drum beats, rhythmic guitar strums, and reassuring piano cause you to release that sigh you've been holding in, relax your shoulders, and let a couple guards down. You start to feel pretty damn good when the claps drop. "Please, Baby, Please" might even find you singing along. But don't get too comfortable, this isn't the album to listen to when you want to feel good about yourself, especially if you're a shitty person, and everyone's a shitty person, sometimes - drunks, smokers, priests, liars, even Bazans, though it's hard to believe. So it's okay, he understands, he knows "it's hard to be/hard to be/a decent human being," although, for him it's pretty easy to be a more than decent musician.

Listen to this album and forget everything I said, go ahead, bop your head.

David Bazan - Curse Your Branches
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Enough of David Bazan as musician, here's David Bazan as art, by Kyle. Striking resemblance, don't you think? (Of Bazan, not Kyle).