After spending a good portion of the '90s writing
beautiful songs with Red House Painters, Mark Kozelek has made some interesting
career choices, most notably devoting entire albums to AC/DC and Modest Mouse
covers. Granted, Kozelek's drastically reworked versions come out sounding like
his own songs, but it means that albums of original material have gone from
special to momentous occasions. April, his third full-length under the Sun Kil Moon
moniker, and the first made up of new songs since 2003, easily bears the weight
of expectations, proving once again that he really does transcend any slowcore
or singer-songwriter tags that have been tossed his way. Lyrically, memories of
growing up in Ohio in "Lucky Man" and the bittersweet love story laid out in
"Moorestown" find Kozelek in fine reflective form, and musically, he couldn't
sound freer, moving from quiet solo ballads to string-filled dreaminess to full-band
rock songs that remain gentle under the distortion. Assistants here include RHP
drummer Anthony Koutsos, Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard, and Will
Oldham, and the influence of listening to all of that Isaac Brock guitar pops
up at the end of "Tonight In Bilbao," which competes with "Moorestown" and
"Lost Verses" as the album's best song. It can be counted as one of the finest
moments in a career that's littered with them.