because gmail is down for craig, I post in his stead

it's tuesday, which of course means new music day! {=o) okay, maybe i'm the only one who thinks of tuesdays as a weekly music holiday. anyway, there is an album out today that i thought some of you might find interesting. david bazan - curse your branches. if you haven't heard of david bazan or his better-known previous project, pedro the lion, it's really a pretty interesting catalog of work. he has always been very open and transparent about his spiritual life and struggles (with some sidebars into his problems with politics/the religious right). starting from his early work of basically hymns and praise songs mixed with critiques of the church to this latest record where he tends to call out god on more than one occasion even to the point of questioning his existence. here's an interesting interview with the guy, if you'd like to find out a little more about where he's coming from.
i've got the record if anyone is interested in borrowing it. i've been listening to it for about a month,* some days i have to play it a few times in a row and sometimes i don't want to hear it.

here are a couple of great songs from the record.

When We Fell

with the threat of hell hanging over my head like a halo
i was made to believe in a couple of beautiful truths
that eventually had the effect of completely unraveling
the powerful curse put on me by you
when you set the table
and when you chose the scale
did you write a riddle
that you knew they would fail
did you make them tremble
so they would tell the tale
did you push us when when we fell
if my mother cries when i tell her what i have discovered
then i hope she remembers she taught me to follow my heart
and if you bully her like you’ve done me with fear of damnation
then i hope she can see you for what you are
what am i afraid of
whom did i betray
in what medieval kingdom does justice work this way
if you knew what would happen and made us just the same
then you , my lord, can take the blame

In Stitches

my body bangs and twitches
some brown liquor whets my tongue
my fingers find the stitches
firmly back and forth they run
i need no other memory
of the bits of me i left
when all this lethal drinking
is to hopefully forget
about you
i might as well admit it
like i even have a choice
the crew have killed the captain
but they still can hear his voice
a shadow on the water
a whisper in the wind
on long walks with my daughter
who is lately full of questions
about you
when job asked you the question
you responded “who are you
to challenge your creator?”
well if that one part is true
it makes you sound defensive
like you had not thought it through
enough to have an answer
like you might have bit off
more than you could chew

* - yes, i am a sinner. i steal music from the internet when it is not yet available in stores. but i fully intend to buy the lp once i can figure out how to get it to my house without melting.