release date Mar. 1, 2019
format: digital (7 x File, FLAC)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,55]
producer: Mark Kozelek
label: Caldo Verde Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Coyote" - 2. "Day in America" - 4. "Cows" - 6. "Couch Potato" - 7. "Bay of Kotor"
10th studio album by Sun Kil Moon following only 4 months after This Is My Dinner (Nov. 2018) may only consist of seven compositions but it has been issued as a double CD album (not yet on vinyl) as the total running time accumulate to 1½ hours (89 mins).
The album features music written by Kozelek with music composed by Kozelek together with jazz saxophonist Donny McCaslin and drummer Jim White - Kozelek himself is credited guitar and bass parts.
At a first listen, the album may seem like a second chapter to his most recent album from Nov. 2018 but it soon turns out that this one comes out as a simpler specimen of sorts - I guess, naturally, given the fewer contributing musicians. More coherently it appears to sticks to a particular theme or idea, which I think, lifts this in terms of listening quality. I enjoy the stronger jazz-feel that sweeps through all compositions and add a different colour and tone to Kozelek's narratives, which here is executed with more focus on sound, as yet another instrument, and as opposed to his more recent releases where you may find it easier to follow the narrative. Regardless the fact that this may also include improvs, it doesn't dabble off, as I sometimes felt it did on the predecessor. On the other hand, the music here often takes form as repetitive patterns that succeed as a kind of meditative state.
The album was generally met by negative and luke-warm response, and my guess is that many people only wish he'd still be making music as he did a decade earlier.
Recommended.
[ 👎allmusic.com 2,5 / 5, 😞Pitchfork 3,2 / 10, 👍Needledrop 7 / 10, New Noise 4 / 5 stars ]
