Skip to main content

ALBUM REVIEW: "Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys Of Blood" by Sun Kil Moon

   Mark Kozelek's 2014 Sun Kil Moon album Benji is one of the most raw and vulnerable albums you will ever hear, an album that sits in your stomach and follows you around relentlessly. The Sun Kil Moon moniker has always been a place in which Kozelek has vented about intensely personal problems and issues, and Benji presented these in almost uncomfortable realism. Unfortunately the albums since then haven't quite reached the depths of Benji. Common As Light... bucks that trend with an album that expands on everything Kozelek forged in Benji. Kozelek's music has always been fiercely intimate, but he has tended to hide behind this a lot in his music, but he managed to peer past the facade on Benji and manages to do so again on Common As Light..., and it is this that raises the album to the heights of Benji.
   It is an entirely different animal to Benji, however; at 2 hours and 10 minutes it is twice as long and therefore is a much more emotionally complex album. Some may find this exhausting, others incredibly rewarding. Kozelek also managed to write an album that becomes steadily more meta as it goes on (just listen to "Vague Rock Song" and "Seventies TV Show Theme Song"), something only hinted at in previous material. Instrumentally, it is a much more diverse album, mixing folk, indie rock, post rock and even hip hop, and Kozelek slides from spoken word to singing to yelling and screaming with ease and poise. The signature sadness that has come to be expected from Sun Kil Moon is still very much present, but feels more grounded in reality, amidst other swirling emotions of everyday life. It ebbs and flows with authenticity and confronting realism in a way Benji never quite achieved and feels more or less like an expansion on everything great about that album. As I mentioned before, though, it never feels like I straightforward re-tread; it adventures to new places rarely if ever seen in Kozelek’s music before and makes them feel exciting and fresh, but pleasantly familiar, too.
   Highly recommended.

   Favourite Tracks: God Bless Ohio, The Highway Song and Bastille Day

   Least Favourite Track: I Love Portugal

   Rating: A



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ALBUM REVIEW: "A Man Apart" by Ben Ottewell

   Ben Ottewell's third LP A Man Apart goes boldly where he has been before, and while it certainly does that pretty well it doesn't manage to either strike new ground or any real emotional response. There is a distinctly "nice" feel to this record, which is, um, nice I guess if that's what you want. But it just doesn't feel like there's any immediacy or forward motion on any of these songs, like Ottewell is content with writing songs that could be on four wheel drive ads. Again, there isn't really anything particularly bad here, it's just a singer-songwriter album that isn't trying to break new ground. His typically growly voice is also beginning to give way to a more accessible, smooth tone, which could place you on either side of this record. For me it just cements it's place firmly in the middle ground somewhere.    Favourite Songs: Own It, A Man Apart and Lead Me    Least Favourite Songs: Watcher, Back To The World and Bones ...
Post a Comment
Read more

1 YEAR LATER: "22, A Million" by Bon Iver

   Bon Iver's third studio album turns 1 in about a week (where did that year go?), so I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about how my impressions of the album have changed - or how they haven't - over the last 12 months. When this album was released I was more excited than I think I ever have been to hear a new album. For Emma, Forever Ago is one of my all time favourites, and I love his self-titled second album too, so I had huge expectations for this album, but was also wary that expectations might ruin my experience of the music. This was particularly the case for 22, A Million , because it is unlike anything else Justin Vernon has released. There have been hints at this more processed, electronic direction previously, like the song "Woods" on the Blood Bank EP and occasional flourishes on Bon Iver , but 22, A Million is a drastic departure from the Bon Iver sound we had grown accustomed to at this point in time. Or at least, that's what I thought...
Post a Comment
Read more

EP REVIEW: "Same Kind Of Different" by Dean Lewis

   Dean Lewis offers up six largely acoustic-driven tunes on his debut offering, all of which are clearly aimed at wider appeal. The acoustic-pop thing has never really done it for me (read my recent Ed Sheeran review  here ), mainly because behind the slick production and singable hooks there's a general lack of songwriting to be had. This is where Same Kind Of Different sits a rung above most other similar albums; take the sugar and fairy dust away and there are still six complete songs that could be on a singer-songwriter album, rough and bare. I can appreciate the way these songs have been tailored to be played to a larger audience, but the substance behind the shine is more important to me. The six songs do sound very similar, however, and they do tend to blur together into a singular mass - which could be a good or a bad thing, depending on who you are. For me that was a bit of a concern on second and third listen, but I was generally pleased by Same Kind Of Diffe...
Post a Comment
Read more