Sun Kil Moon: April

Label: Caldo Verde

That voice. Not to diminish Mark Kozelek’s prodigious gifts for arrangement and production, nor his tremendous guitar-playing, but the amber beauty and light-in-darkness of Sun Kil Moon’s gorgeous new offering, April, are carried primarily by Kozelek’s mournful tenor. Guest backup vocalists are well-used throughout, but Will Oldham’s characteristically lachrymose delivery on “Unlit Hallway” and “Like the River” is especially complementary; Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie and Eric Pollard of Retribution Gospel Choir also appear. Oldham’s presence is the first clue that April is a much darker endeavor than Sun Kil Moon’s last album of originals, 2003’s Ghosts Of The Great Highway: the minimal guitars and wearied vocals push haunting “Heron Blue” into murder-ballad territory, while elsewhere, extended song structures become relentless, almost bleak in their repetition. Epic-length tracks like “The Light” and “Tonight The Sky” show off the languid, ominous guitarwork that proves Kozelek the Neil Young acolyte he professes to be. While finding the lovely melody in the sadness has been Kozelek’s trademark since his first Red House Painters release, here the two are inseparable: the gloom is married to a vitality that carries throughout, underpinning the record’s dark tone to a haunted glory. April surges with the quiet, smoldering power of intimacy, of contrition, of longing – using a human voice to exhibit the resonance of melancholy, Sun Kil moon has created a document for the ages. (Anna)