Benji, the sixth studio album that San Francisco’s Mark Kozelek has put out under the Sun Kil Moon moniker, is a dark record stooped in ennui and unsettling realities.
It starts off beautifully with ‘Carissa’, an ode to Kozelek’s deceased second cousin and a song he fills with the painful details of her death. Indeed, throughout the album he handles sensitive subject matter skillfully, with a clear reverence for his characters and fascination with the minutiae of everyday.
The penultimate ‘Micheline’ certainly has the best melody on the record; its subject matter – about three separate deaths of people close to him – perhaps would have better suited a 10-minute running time rather than the drawn-out ‘I Watched The Film The Song Remains The Same’.
It’s not all this strong, though: the uncomfortable sexual imagery of ‘Dogs’ would run the risk of being boring if it wasn’t so bizarre. Elsewhere, the first four minutes of ‘Richard Ramirez Died Today Of Natural Causes’ are a hard slog, particularly due to Kozelek’s disorienting multitracked vocals; just when it all locks in with a nice drum pattern though, the song peters out.
‘I Love My Dad’ and the surprisingly content finale ‘Ben’s My Friend’ contain some of the lyrical highlights on the album, but are set against formulaic folk backings. While interesting, none of these are songs you’ll be desperate to revisit.
Credit where it’s due: Kozelek truly has a gift for storytelling, and there isn’t much at the moment that sounds this frank and indifferent to its audience. But while his meandering and occasionally dull guitar work does accompany his slow drawl nicely, the end result isn’t something particularly compelling. It’s ripe for analysing and an easy album to respect, but it can be hard to truly love outside of the right context.
