Pedro the Lion's debut finds singer/songwriter David Bazan exploring several aesthetics that he would never quite revisit again. The bendy chords and gorgeous lilt of "Suspect Fled the Scene" suggests country music with a dash of Pavement, while "Big Trucks" is Bazan’s sideways version of Lemonheads-style jangle rock. But Bazan’s talent for detailed, empathic storytelling was sharp from the very beginning, as on "Bad Diary Days," where he uses the discovery of a girlfriend's ticket stubs as a metaphor for a man’s jealousy problems.