AMG Review of It's Hard to Find a Friend

David Dwyer
All Music Guide

Pedro the Lion's Dave Bazan is an observant Christian who wears his sins on his sleeve. Still, there's a sweetness about his outlook and journey on It's Hard to Find a Friend. The songs offer nice detail: he finds his girlfriend has ticket stubs to a movie she saw with someone, but not him; and he wishes he could become the disciplined person a friend is "for a few habit-forming years." There's some real grace and poetry in the lyrics, and the music is spare, simple, and hypnotic. Bazan seems to be a musical hybrid of Moe Tucker and Daniel Johnston, with a dash of Brian Wilson ("The Longer I Lay Here") and Popol Vuh ("The Bells"). A brotherly gem.