Sun Kil Moon - Universal Themes

 

Sun Kil Moon

Universal Themes

2015

Sun Kil Moon can often come across as not giving a fuck about what he is putting out into the world. His style is so blasé and steam of consciousness that at a first listen it's off putting. But something grads you, something holds on. Universal Themes deals with death, grief, loss, and the understanding that exists within it all. The album feels like it was laid down in a day, simple guitar, easy drums and Mark Kozelek spilling out every ounce of his soul onto tape. Because his style is so on the surface there is zero pretense, there is zero attempt of making a song catchy or a certain length just to fit into a box. Sun Kil Moon is more focused on stripping away those things that hold us back from emotion and releasing his pure thoughts. The truth of the fact is whatever Mark Kozelek's character might be outside of his music He still is doing something that no one else does, letting you deep inside him through his music without keeping a sonic barrier between the two. 

The tracks on the album are all quite long (at least eight minutes) and while it is a rambling style nothing every feels to long or aggressively mundane. The Spanish style Coda's that he breaks into intermittently throughout the album are beautiful little respites between his barrage of life stories. "Birds of Films" chronicles his time playing himself in an Italian film in the Swiss Alps and the surreal nature of being paid to be himself while itching to be home drinking "real iced tea". "Garden of Lavender" is probably the most melodic and symbolic track on the album, it has a beautiful flowing quality that brings you directly into the garden he describes while still holding onto the theme of eventual end and death. Universal Themes is a work grounded completely in truth telling and dropping of the guard. It holds on to that part of all of us that want to speak before we think and let it all out. A really solid album and worth a listen.

7.6 out of 10