As an artist, Mark Kozelek is in that phase of his creativity in which he is capable of saying anything that's on his mind without caring what others will think. He started opening up with 2012 Among The Leaves, and it evolved on the album that was praised by critics and fans, 2014 Benji. Following stream of consciousness, Mark started resolving metaphysical conflicts through autobiographical narrative. But, just as in that episode of South Park when Cartman is acting that he has Tourette's syndrome, and then he could not hinder flood of truths coming out of his mouth, Mark was giving controversial statements and even went that far to record a song War On Drugs: Suck My Cock. After Universal Themesand Jesu/Sun Kil Moon on which he strived to take it to the next level (without success), the last thing I expected from him was to release 130 minute long album.
Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood is difficult to place in any box, although the closest definition would probably be slam rant folk. The listener is confronted with the overflow of random verses that suck him in Mark's life from January till August of 2016. Hypnotic music background and mechanically precise rhythm is responsibility of Sonic Youth's ex drummer Steve Shelley, who was also featured on LP Benji. Kozlek played almost all the other instruments to get fresh sounds, even those he never played before such as bass and piano. It all affected minimalistic lucid music texture permeated with spoken-word vocal in poetic, almost rap fashion.
Lyrics are this record's forte. Epic rants about alternative facts and castigation of media's construction of our reality are far from Sun Kil Moon's common theme - intimacy. The author takes hyper realistic approach and he has no mercy in his judgment of massive shooting, rights of sexual minorities, social media, etc. Seldomly tragic, sporadically comic and 100% introverted perspective manages to reflect our constant exposure to informational torture. Death of celebrities (Bowie, Prince, Ali) is another dominant theme used for lamentation over the past in which Kozlek finds path for the future. The example for this is phenomenal Say in which the shortest song on the world is used, the song by Muhammad Ali - me, we. These moments are abundant on the album, and just the mention of all of them would require the whole essay.
In conclusion, Sun Kil Moon has brought us another admirable album on the edge between madness and brilliance.
