Jesu / Sun Kil Moon – Album Review by Killian Laher

Red House Pantera? Sun Kil Megadeth?! The predictably unpredictable Mark Kozelek returns with a collaboration with Justin Broadrick of doom-metal band Jesu. Heavy guitars are nothing new for Kozelek, 20 years ago he was rocking out on Red House Painters’ Songs for a Blue Guitar album. But where previously the guitar crunch was just one element in a pleasing mix, here, on the rockier numbers, it’s about little else.

It’s certainly not the most subtle music he’s had – brain crushing riffs, pounding drums, and Kozelek roaring, bellowing, grunting in a deranged fashion with some fairly banal lyrics (“oh man oh man oh man oh man” – Carondelet). Opener Good Morning My Love consists mainly of Broadrick’s heavy guitars and Kozelek’s usual rambling lyrics, this time asking “what does rekindle mean” (apparently a line from Road To Las Vegas). But in the main Broadrick’s sludgy riffs deliver on A Song of Shadows and Sally, in a primal, metal way, though what Kozelek’s ramblings add is anyone’s guess.

Elsewhere we get Perils From The Sea (Kozelek’s collaboration with Jimmy Lavalle) style electronica on absurdly-titled Last Night I Rocked The Room Like Elvis And Had Them Laughing Like Richard Pryor, and America’s Most Wanted Mark Kozelek And John Dillinger, though they are kind of ruined by him reading fan letters (really). Even he can’t keep a straight face reading these out, as if he’s laughing at the listener for sticking with these tracks to the end. Lyrics about how “Pitchfork gave me a 6” (Last Night…) don’t really induce much other than eye-rolling. Exodus is the most downbeat, being a meditation on bereaved parents, yet despite the grave subject matter, possibly the most successful in a sort of… affecting way.

Fragile is an anomaly, reminiscent of Nick Drake with picked acoustic guitar, while Beautiful You is something else again, a bleached-out, John Lennon style melody stretched out over 14 minutes as Kozelek weaves his way through his own rather insular world, talking and singing about working out acoustic versions of his songs, a spontaneous dip in the sea and lots of mentions of his girlfriend Caroline.

In some ways it’s a pity they didn’t go the whole hog and make a full metal album. But the album surely doesn’t have the depth they thought or hoped it might have. It’s difficult to see who will really enjoy this album. It’s far too strange for the merely curious, and it’s difficult to see any of Kozelek’s followers taking this latest change in direction to their hearts. File under odd as be damned.

Album Streaming in Full Here.

Tracklist –

1. Good Morning My Love
2. Carondelet
3. A Song of Shadows
4. Last Night I Rocked The Room Like Elvis and Had Them Laughing Like Richard Pryor
5. Fragile
6. Father’s Day
7. Sally
8. America’s Most Wanted Mark Kozelek and John Dillinger
9. Exodus
10. Beautiful You

America’s Most Wanted Mark Kozelek and John Dillinger

http://www.sunkilmoon.com/kozelekdillinger/