Among the Leaves
Sun Kil Moon
Caldo Verde Records.
I’ve been a
late-bloomer over the course of my entire relationship with Sun Kil Moon.
Arriving in time for 2008’s April and anxiously awaiting 2010’s Admiral’s Fell
Promises didn’t accelerate those records’ slow-burning intensity, although both
placed well on SCQ’s Top Twenty Albums lists, respectively. But music this
isolated and sparse shouldn’t take so long to digest, should it?
I mean, Mark Kozelek’s
greatest smoke-and-mirrors – his strictness against embellishment, insistence
on saying exactly what he wants (regardless of how long it takes) and an oft-mumbling
delivery – should be weakened by the straight-up candor of Among the Leaves,
but it isn’t. Taking direct shots at former loves, life on the road, aging
friends, sad-sack fans and occasionally himself, Kozelek’s restlessness no
longer weaves a subtext but the diary-detailed plot of Among the Leaves. And
somehow, perhaps thanks to the record’s very Sun Kil Moon-ish length, these
seventeen songs hide their graces for that unassuming upteenth listen, when
Kozelek’s lonely croon hits your headphones at the most opportune moment.
Granted, there’s
more than enough evidence to support the idea that Kozelek’s writing more for
himself than any of his fans, but that’s part of what makes his records so exceptionally
insular. Getting lost in Among the Leaves’ pristine guitar work and
instrumental subtleties, to the point where the bludgeoning force of Kozelek’s
lyrics fall completely unexpected into our laps, is a sorrowful joy to behold,
ensuring a rare immediacy amid one of indie-rock’s more impenetrable catalogs.
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