Sun Kil Moon - Admiral Fell Promises

Sun Kil Moon
Admiral Fell Promises
2010 Caldo Verde

Mark Kozelek, the driving force (and perhaps the only force) behind Sun Kil Moon, began his music career in earnest as a member of the band Red House Painters. That band released several albums over the course of a decade or so until they split in 2001, and since then, Kozelek has been releasing a string of albums under both his own name and the Sun Kil Moon moniker. Admiral Fell Promises is the fourth album to bear the Sun Kil Moon name, following the fantastic Ghosts of the Great Highway (2003), Tiny Cities (2005) and April (2008) albums.

Kozelek’s lyrics are perhaps the main attraction to his music. He’s a very literal wordsmith. His music is soaked in nostalgia; most Kozelek songs, Sun Kil Moon or otherwise, concern remembrances of particular people and places. Kozelek is brilliant at bringing the listener to these places and painting an image with his words. The music acts as a solvent for those words, allowing us to glide through Kozelek’s thoughts and feelings seamlessly.

Though most of Kozelek’s output follows the same trajectory, most of his albums will erupt in a cascade of sound at just the right moments to provide some relief from the occasionally heavy melancholic nostalgia. Admiral Fell Promises is much more straightforward than Sun Kil Moon’s previous albums, opting for perennial sparseness and lightness and eschewing the more rocking elements of the previous records. Beautiful guitar work and strong lyrics abound, but Admiral Fell Promises doesn’t pack the punch of Sun Kil Moon’s earlier work and can’t match the otherworldly heights of those albums.

We start with “Ålesund”, a very pretty song with a simple acoustic guitar complimenting Kozelek’s haunted voice. All songs on Admiral Fell Promises consist of Kozelek and his acoustic guitar, which makes this sound more like an exercise in classical guitar than a rock record. Any type of percussion is rare and the music is rarely punched up, relying on Kozelek’s powerful vocals and force of will to push songs over the top.

The album continues with a number of nice, thoughtful songs, all providing enjoyable listens but never deviating from the mean or powering their way out of the speakers. The album’s fourth track, “Third And Seneca”, is the first to command attention, starting light but eventually picking up and changing tempo and sound, providing the album with a needed shift. Kozelek sings about the view from his apartment window and thinks about the places he’s been in illuminating simplicity:

Seattle black, Alaska blue
Oregon gray, raincloud Vancouver
Dead in Denver, drowsy Idaho
Just dreams away from your love, San Francisco

Sometimes songs go the other way, which also works well. “The Leaning Tree” starts softly, but morphs into a somber acoustic soundscape without resorting to a jarring transition. Songs continue to flow nicely into one another, each beautiful but largely lacking impression. Admiral Fell Promises is almost boringly beautiful, because Kozelek makes every song sound so nice and it seems so easy for him to write them. One nice thing about Kozelek is this effortlessness. Kozelek and Sun Kil Moon might be revelatory for people who like to slow down, take their time, and look around every now and then. Kozelek isn’t in a rush, and he’s one of the few songwriters with the innate ability to transfer this spirit into his music and have it make sense.

Despite the collection of good songs and the cohesion between them, Admiral Fell Promises can’t help but feel like a slight disappointment based on Sun Kil Moon’s previous, absolutely brilliant output. Where the three previous Sun Kil Moon records were dynamic and different, Admiral Fell Promises doesn’t take any chances and doesn’t stray far from its melancholy classical acoustic core. The lyrics remain top notch, but the album lacks the strength to make them as vibrant as they should be. This album is certainly a worthy endeavor, but one that might cause some lapses in concentration while listening to it.

B.

John Lacey