Sun Kil Moon - Benji

Sun Kil Moon - Benji

Rating - 8

Mark Kozelek is haunted. He must be - ghosts float in and around his latest Sun Kil Moon album, Benji, as if it were written and recorded in a cemetery. The ghosts of his second-cousin Carissa and her grandfather, his uncle, who both died in freak trash fire accidents; the ghosts of serial killer Richard Ramirez and the late, great James Gandolfini, who both "died of natural causes"; the ghost of his dad's friend's wife, who was killed by her husband out of mercy; the ghosts of mall shooting victims and those of the children at Newtown. 

At first spin (and possibly second, fifth and tenth), it is the presence of death that drives this album. Kozelek seems to be working through the unfairness of it all - that his family members should perish under such freak circumstances, or that someone as awful as Richard Ramirez should go as easily and at the same age as James Gandolfini; that killing out of love is still murder and that mass shootings exist at all. 

Even the songs without mention of the dead carry the ominous idea of death, either explicitly or implicitly. It's easy to pick up on when Kozelek is lamenting the inevitable passing of his mother, but remains ever-present, whether he's rifling through stories about his first sexual encounters, replaying a day spent eating crab cakes and buying lamps with his girlfriend, or remembering the first time he saw the movie The Song Remains the Same. There's a pervading sense that he's passed the tipping point between creating and remembering experiences - that more has happened to him now than will ever happen to him again.  

It's easy to be swept up in the morbidity of Benji, but I don't think that was Kozelek's intention. Underneath and in between the dark spots are small moments of profound beauty. Kozelek is a master of capturing these tiny moments in simple, straightforward but powerful lines. The real takeaway then, is that in art, as in life, poetry can be found in the simplest places and in the most mundane actions, and that the imminence and prominence of death can actually serve to emphasize it. When Kozelek sings, "Carissa was 35. You don't just raise two kids, and take out your trash and die," it seems like such an obvious statement, but within the context of the story it carries the weight of her lifetime. 

These stories and moments come at you as if pouring from the mouth of a drunk who's gotten a bit too comfortable sharing. They explore minute details of very personal feelings and experiences and then, out of the blue, jump to something else entirely. They can have very clear points but arrive via very roundabout paths. Some may see these paths as random, but Kozelek is savvier than that, and while he fills each song with enough people and stories for ten, he knows when to slow down and let a word or a phrase really sink in. Similarly, while the arrangements are simple and repetitive, small flourishes and subtle chord changes provide perfectly understated accents.  

The problem with this approach is that again, as in life, you have to wade through the other stuff to find the really meaningful parts - and even then, it can easily slip by as just another meaningless moment if you're not paying attention. This lack of self-editing can also create some moments that are awkwardly vulnerable. The thin line that separates simple and trite is one that Kozelek lives on, and to his credit he rarely oversteps, but when he repeats "I love my dad" over and over alongside gospel singers, or recalls that "Mary Ann was my first fuck, she'd slide down between my legs and oh my god she could suck" it's hard not to roll your eyes. 

Still, Benji is an album worth unpacking. It doesn't all work, but when there’s so much to sift through, it’s hard to condemn a few missteps. Within the torrent of stories, moments, names, lives and yes, deaths, there is a lot of beauty to be found.