Though David Bazan was always the main force behind Pedro The Lion, the singer/guitarist retired the moniker in 2006. Curse Your Branches (Barsuk), his full-length debut under his own name, will arrive in late summer. “Part of the reason for ‘breaking up the band’ was that I was struggling to grow out of a lot of the personal immaturity that seemed to define Pedro The Lion for me,” says Bazan. “[The new songs] are far more personal and less fictional or hypothetical like Pedro songs tended to be.” Recorded at Bazan’s home, Curse Your Branches includes guest appearances by the Long Winters’ John Roderick, former Pedro multi-instrumentalist T.W. Walsh and members of Fleet Foxes and Crystal Skulls. Though it doesn’t have a narrative concept in the vein of Pedro’s 2002 album Control, Bazan says Branches deals in themes of “agnosticism, booze and family.”
Neko Case’s self-produced fifth studio album, Middle Cyclone (Anti-), is due March 3. Recorded mostly in Tucson and Brooklyn, Cyclone has a long list of guests (M. Ward, Howe Gelb, the Lilys’ Kurt Heasley, members of the New Pornographers, Los Lobos, Calexico and the Sadies) and includes a cover of Sparks’ “Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth.”
Former Sub Pop act the Thermals will release fourth album Now We Can See on Kill Rock Stars April 7. Silversun Pickups’ sophomore album, Swoon (Dangerbird), is also due in the spring.
