Drowned In Sound 70

While Kozelek manages to touch on politics, tragic events, and celebrity idol worship among many important topics, the thematic elephant in the room is Kozelek turning 50. This touchstone informs much of his content, especially with 'God Bless Ohio', a soulful visit back in time to Kozelek’s birthplace, experiences as a youth, and what led him to pursue music in the first place. The band transitions to much harder instrumentation on 'The Highway Song', where Kozelek comments on various scenes as if he is looking out of his rearview mirror with an acute and curious eye for detail. Interspersed throughout the song are chilling real-life crime stories that Kozelek recalls in his trademark blasé monotone. The narrative interruptions run their course after the first listen however, and so 'The Highway Song' lacks much of the replay value we have come to expect over the years with Sun Kil Moon.

In his current state, Kozelek often dials down the singing to do these rambling spoken word sessions. He sounds extra embittered this time around, as if in his ageing he has assumed the role as an avant-garde father figure. During the nine-minute-long 'Lone Star', by far one of the most gripping songs on the album, Kozelek holds nothing back in his tirade against contemporary America. Despite the song being recorded around the time of the U.S. primaries, he foreshadows a world where a Donald Trump presidency is inevitable because of the ubiquitous online newsfeed culture and individuals’ slavery to technology. He even touches on the issue of transgenders being banned from North Carolina restrooms, the downfall of political journalism, and one of his favourite topics - the futility of social media. 'Sarah Lawrence College Song', with its sleek bassline doesn’t suffer the same fate as 'The Highway Song', mainly because the stories have an eternal quality about them, the students referenced breathing life into Kozelek’s tale.

There is never a singular anecdote or scheme with Kozelek, as he bounces around from topic to topic, providing a kaleidoscope of information in one song. In the commencement of the melodic 'Early June Blues' Kozelek is concerned with ageing, mainly in regards to relationships. On 'Bergen to Trondheim', an enraged Kozelek wastes no time in attacking Omar Mateen, the shooter in the infamous Orlando nightclub shootings and sends his fervent condolences to the families of the victims. He namedrops Muhammad Ali, one of the most outspoken American entertainers as the only one with the answers to the tragic events in Orlando. Perhaps the most absorbing song on the album both in terms of Kozelek’s lyrics and the sonic quality, he addresses terrorism once again on the velvety 'Bastille Day'.

Kozelek seems to go right at the throats of critics on 'Vague Rock Song', where the majority of the song pokes fun at what he deems pointless rock that doesn’t have any sort of message. The concept is more intriguing than the actual song however, a problem that plagues Kozelek on some occasions. But like he says on 'Seventies TV Show Theme Song', “maybe the world has changed and I’m not that kind of songwriter anymore”. There’s no doubt that Kozelek has changed, and for much of Common As Light… his ramblings and sonic backdrop are gripping. Unfortunately, there are many moments when that rambling seems aimless. The good news for fans of Kozelek’s work in its current iteration is that there will be no shortage of worldly events for him to contend with for future projects.

Pitchfork 65

In retrospect, Sun Kil Moon’s 2014 milestone Benji was less of a breakthrough than a breakdown just before Mark Kozelek became definitively mean and petty. Even with Benji’s life-flashing-before-your-eyes earnestness (the repentance! the forgiveness! the laughs! the tears!), its lessons seem to have gone unabsorbed. Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood comes in at 130 minutes. This is after two Sun Kil Moon albums—2015’s Universal Themes, 2016’s Jesu/Sun Kil Moon—that left no one thinking, “I wish these were twice as long.” Kozelek knows that Common as Light isn’t an easy sell. In a particularly forgettable number called “Seventies TV Show Theme Song,” he admits, “All I know is this reminds me of the theme to ‘Barney Miller’/It wasn’t intentional, just adding a song on the record for filler.” It’s not the only lyric on here that simply describes what the music sounds like, or dares you to stop listening. These are by-and-large the most confrontational songs Kozelek has ever put out, but strangely they’re also some of the more exciting ones he’s written since developing his post-Benji spoken word style.

While recent records have found Kozelek lambasting his vinyl-collecting fans and putting the fear of God in the minds of bloggers who miss his Red House Painters days, here Kozelek directs his fury more broadly. He makes three things absolutely clear: he hates iPhones, he hates Twitter, and he hates the twentysomethings who read Twitter on their iPhones. If there’s a theme to this record (the way that, you know, acting in a Paolo Sorrentino film was the theme of the previous Sun Kil Moon LP), it’s that the world is fucked, man, so get off your phone and respect your elders (especially Mark Kozelek). Many songs attempt to reflect Kozelek’s anger following mass shootings to varying degrees of profundity. The awkwardly chipper music in “Bastille Day” creates an effect not dissimilar to Smash Mouth playing the intro to “All Star” on loop while their singer threatens the audience. This mode, as one might imagine, doesn’t add up to a particularly moving collection of songs.

It does, however, make for some surprisingly great moments. In “Philadelphia Cop,” which slowly evolves into a eulogy for David Bowie, Kozelek lands a bitter jab: “If you’re a man in charge claiming you’re a staunch feminist, then give a woman your job or shut the fuck up, Queen Bitch.” In the well-meaning “Lone Star,” he helps save a suicidal woman’s life and tries to convince North Carolina officials to amend their transphobic bathroom laws. The slow, ominous “Sarah Lawrence College Song,” finds him performing a small gig for a group of college students, which obviously leads to him berating them for how much their parents pay for tuition. He replies, “That’s what Walmart pays me to use my music in commercials,” but quickly changes his tone: “Maybe I can go to their school one day too, ‘cause they all seem like really nice people.”

Many of these songs follow similar patterns: Kozelek snaps and sympathizes in the same breath. When he jokes with his colorblind building manager that he wants his tiles “gray… like your hair, man,” he comments just a second later, “Hey, I got a little gray too, I’m not picking on you.” The reason why similarly quotidian story-songs like “Gustavo” or “Jim Wise” hit so hard was because they resulted in double portraits: You learned more about Kozelek through his observations of others. On Common as Light, Kozelek fills the whole frame, increasing the humor and anger, but sacrificing the subtlety. If the diaristic style he developed on his last few releases has been generously compared to novelists like Karl Ove Knausgård or James Joyce, then these songs feel more like Larry David or, at their most vulgar, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

Curiously, Kozelek plays a ton of synth here—a foreign sound for any Sun Kil Moon record. “I’ve found that when you put an instrument in someone’s hands that they aren’t used to playing, interesting things happen,” he noticed in a recent interview. A lot of this does sound new, which is becoming more difficult as he becomes more prolific and the world catches up with him. Phil Elverum cited him as an influence for his upcoming Mount Eerie album, and you can hear pieces of “Carissa” in “Ravens,” just like you can hear “Sunshine in Chicago” in “Okkervil River R.I.P.,” or “I Watched the Film the Song Remains the Same” in Father John Misty’s “Leaving L.A.” Kozelek’s work continues to ripple outward, even as he retreats further and further into himself.

Just last year, a pitch-perfect parody made the rounds, mimicking Kozelek’s style to the point of tricking a few people into thinking a new EP of his had surfaced. The irony is that those pensive, guitar-based songs already sound completely outdated—representative of a different Mark Kozelek from a different time. Such is the nature of his work. Kozelek has always been his own most restless listener, and part of his motivation is simply to keep himself interested in making art, whether that means changing his band name, starting his own record label, or turning his own songwriting process into his muse. “Maybe you’ll hear it and think, ‘I prefer your older songs,’” he sings in “Seventies TV Show Theme,” “Well, maybe the world has changed and I’m not that songwriter anymore.” In spirit, Common as Light resembles his classic work more than he’s willing to admit. After all, his previous epics Rollercoaster and April were emotionally exhausting listens, unfolding with the intensity of a man trying to pack everything he knows into one record. As disorienting and overwhelming as any of Kozelek’s defining albums, Common as Light patiently reveals more of the artist to anyone who’s still paying attention.

Tiny Mix Tapes 40

Sun Kil Moon
Common As Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood

[Rough Trade; 2017]

Rating: 2/5