Sun Kil Moon - April

Sun Kil Moon
April

My introduction to Sun Kil Moon was eminently ideal. During a late-night drive a few years ago, the melancholy chord progression of “Duk Koo Kim,” from Ghosts of the Great Highway, spilled from my friend’s car stereo and became trance-like in its sprawling, ruminative repetition, as if unspooling onto the dark two-lane highway behind us.

That song’s aesthetic—aching, searching, expansive—is displayed throughout April, Mark Kozelek’s latest release as Sun Kil Moon. Opener “Lost Verses” is a 10-minute juggernaut devoid of memorable hooks or hummable choruses—but Kozelek devotees should know by now that while he makes beautiful music, he doesn’t traffic in catchy refrains. While not quite a contrarian, he begs our patience; this is music that requires a long, gradual familiarization. “Lost Verses” is the first reminder that our expectations will be repeatedly met, then thwarted: after several minutes of mid-tempo meditation, it breaks into galloping, distorted chords.

Lyrically, Kozelek spends April looking back and taking stock: though his delivery isn’t the crispest—a bit frustrating, given the original, poetic quality of the lyrics we can decipher—there is plenty of reminiscence, including place names (“Moorestown,” “Harper Road,” “Tonight in Bilbao”); colors (“Blue Orchids,” “Heron Blue”); family members (“Lucky Man”) and unnamed female foils (nearly every song, naturally).

Musically, Kozelek’s signature elements are all in place: precise guitar playing, keening vocal harmonies, and his voice’s melancholy tenor mixed well toward the front. The percussion is spare and soft around the edges, which makes the rare switch from brushes to sticks all the more arresting. The scale of the album is ambitious, but Kozelek occasionally opts for skeletal arrangements: “Heron Blue” wends along on little more than a repetitive, steely guitar line undergirded by an ominously quiet bass drum. And just when you think Kozelek has reached the limits of his sonic rusticity, Will Oldham appears on two tracks, often with a chorus of banjoes pattering away behind him. You can almost hear a thousand sighs of gratitude as the fans shared by these two musical savants ask, “What took you so long?”

While the album’s sonic quality is reassuringly predictable, its structures are not: tempos change without warning and ornate instrumental passages are inserted between verses. The end of “Tonight In Bilbao” swims off into a coda in 11/4; closer “Blue Orchids” is punctuated by a classical guitar line that climbs, then hangs for a moment before introducing the next section. The song’s final ascension pauses at the top of the stairs for a moment, then resolves.

Everything about April evokes the uncertain interstitial aspect that its namesake month has always connoted, at least for me: A pre-dawn, pre-summer limbo where winter’s ostensibly over, but spring is still holding out. To his winter-weary listeners, Mark Kozelek offers these songs as a balm, if not a remedy. They won’t speed summer’s arrival, but they may provide some solace while we wait.