Sun Kil Moon Rants About Everything And Nothing On ‘Common As Light’

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way, this album is stupid long. Clocking in at over two hours, if you can handle listening to it in it’s entirety, you’re a trooper. It wasn’t until an hour or two ago that I read this is actually intended to be a double album, which now makes the massive length make a little more sense. What it doesn’t explain is why the songs themselves run on for so long, with each song running at around eight minutes or so.

But I suppose that’s just the kind of artist Mark Kozelek is, one who does whatever the hell he wants. I can’t say I’m surprised. The former Red House Painters vocalist has made numerous headlines lately for being extremely crude. Whether it’s calling a journalist from The Guardian a bitch or making a song about The War On Drugs called “Suck My Cock”, this guy just can’t seem to catch a break. (Psst, this is my message pointing out my sarcasm because reading on the internet can be dumb sometimes.) Luckily for him, I try not to really mix the politics of an artist with their art. And also luckily for him, his music is really great.

Though I haven’t heard the bulk of his work because he has so many different projects going on, I, like a lot of people, was introduced to Kozelek through his side project Sun Kil Moon and their breakout album Benji. A personal, intelligent album that moved and crafted beautiful intense stories, Benji rightfully earned praise from numerous publications. I missed the band’s follow-up, Universal Themes, which received less praise, but was drawn to this newest album, Common As Light And Love Are Red Valleys Of Blood. It was maybe due to Kozelek’s recent newsworthy actions that drew me to it. He’s an artist whose personal opinions are impossible to separate from his art because his life stories are all that occupy his music and make them so special. So to get his firsthand side of these stories would be interesting. Unfortunately these are stories he mostly avoids on the album, which feels near impossible on an album where Kozelek rambles continuously throughout it’s entirety.

Sometimes the stories he spews can be interesting. This is especially true on the tracks that are focused on a singular concept. Bergen To Trondheim is the best example of this. It zeroes in on the ideas of gun violence and mass shootings, especially towards the Orlando nightclub shooting that occurred last year. It’s a stunning letter of consolation that hits hard. Lone Star which focuses on transgender rights and why Donald Trump became president also carries a lot of weight. This track would carry more weight though if there weren’t three or four other songs on the album that went over the same subject matter. I’m glad someone is talking about it, it’s important, but rather than let one song become a hit over it’s salient subject matter, that importance is split up and doesn’t resonate the same way.

That could be said about the album as a whole. There are great stories every now and then, but they’re crammed between a lot of senseless ranting that the scavenger hunt to find something worthwhile doesn’t always feel worth it. I compare it to those Russell Stover heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. They’re a fun gift, but no one ever really wants them because there’s the chance you’re going to get one of those surprise disgusting pieces and it’ll make you not want to go through the rest of them. It also doesn’t help that you can easily go out and buy a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup (Benji), which you know is a sure thing, and just enjoy that without wondering or thinking that you’re wasting your time.

Thankfully, if it’s everything surrounding the stories that you’re interested in, the album is full of interesting production. The album frequently breaks down into spoken word with minimal instrumentation soundtracking it that’s comparable to a Jonny Greenwood score. It can almost feel like you’re listening to an audiobook. Kozelek’s boxing stories especially are painted with such vivid imagery that you can enjoy them without complex music around it.

Getting back briefly though to the extended length of the tracks, and album as a whole, it’s weird to rate individual songs because they’re so long they often feel like they have chapters. One chapter in the song may be amazing, but another can feel uninteresting. It also makes it hard to find singular songs to be a fan of. When a musician or band ends a track with an interlude that you’re not into, it’s easy to just skip to the next track. It’s harder with this album because each song goes in and out of the core song and it’s interlude multiple times.

The one song that is easy to interpret and listen to also happens to be the one song I happen to dislike. Vague Rock Song literally feels like an imitation of Jack Johnson’s If I Had Eyes, just not as bubbly or catchy. Maybe that was intentional, to poke fun at actual vague rock songs, but that doesn’t make it anymore enjoyable.

The album is actually great. The instrumentation is great. The stories are mostly interesting. But as a whole, the album is just too much and too depressing for me to actually think I’d listen to it again. And I know for a fact I’d never just throw it on as something to listen to front to back. Perhaps I’ll go back and listen to Bergen To Trondheim every so often for it’s story, but I know it won’t be long before Kozelek is back with more stories, relevant to the time of their release and I’ll happily leave this record behind for that, especially if it isn’t two hours long.