Sun Kil Moon - Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys Of Blood
Sun Kil Moon - Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys Of Blood
Wow, this is really good. I don't know if he's gotten better or if I've just gotten used to it, but my feelings toward Mark Kozelek's style of music have gone from grumpy indifference to an earnest fascination. It does seem like he's putting in effort towards making his stream-of-consciousness, journalized lyrics into something more musically interesting. There are some actual hooks to these songs.
There's also more variety in the styles and melodies, and the rhythm section has taken a big leap forward; some of the backing tracks here even sound a bit like rap beats. There's more experimentation too. He seems to be trying to evoke the jolting, diverse, distractible nature of a person's thoughts with the music itself, instead of just the lyrics and song structure. He's maximizing his ability to pull the universal out of the specific, and the profound out of the banal. There are some jokey sections, and some spoken word, but it mostly works the whole way through.
No album of this length (two hours!) can possibly be perfect, but I enjoyed this perhaps more than I have anything he's released. Strongly recommended.
Stream in full below via Bandcamp.
Highlights: God Bless Ohio • The Highway Song • Bergen To Trondheim
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