Pedro the Lion - Achilles' Heel (2004)

happy new year! hope everyone is refreshed from some form of holiday break / family drama and excited to be back at work and embarking on resolutions you'll soon give up on in hopeless despair. i personally read a bunch of comic books and started watching a really bad TV show based on a comic book. what can i say? i have an addictive personality.

so, funny how it worked out for me to get the first album of the new year. 

and no, we're not re-hashing the Napolean Dynamite soundtrack. rather an oldie, but a goodie, that i had not really given a solid listen until recently - Pedro the Lion's Achilles Heel

in the winter of 2007 i made a stop in DC to see my good pal Kana (where i also met her then-boyfriend / now-husband and recently departed musooklubber Richard). Kana gave me a USB key full of great music, which i dropped on my PC, eventually burning an MP3 backup disc. fast forward to 2011, when my then-brand-new car had an MP3 6-disc changer. what better idea than using my old backup discs, where this very album get the multiple plays it sorely deserved.

i honestly don't know much about Pedro the Lion, but his (Pedro's - which i'm assuming is not the lead singer's name, much like Darius Rucker's real name is not Hootie) swooning and droning have a way of getting in the back of your head. while the first half of the album is definitely hard(er) to get into, the latter half is spectacular and makes those first 5-6 tracks worth powering through.  you'll soon find yourself humming the chorus of "Transcontinental" or a "A Simple Plan" - with your wife thinking you're singing Christmas Carols. i'm not saying that just happened, but it totally did.

so happy New Year's, give Pedro the Lion a whirly-whirl.

https://app.box.com/s/8z1r6o4gx2ozor9454z6