"WE'RE gonna have some fun tonight," deadpanned Mark Kozelek sarcastically, in a rare jocular moment. "We're gonna play a lot of short, fun songs in major keys. Real loud."
But for a quick check later to make sure no one was snoring, that was ab
out as verbose as the renowned American miserablist got during this set by Sun Kil Moon, the band he formed essentially as a continuation of his critically lauded slowcore outfit Red House Painters, who disbanded in 2001 after 12 years of complex, unhurried and monumentally lengthy rocking.
Specialising in lyrics detailing the intimate minutiae of life down in the dumps, Kozelek is one of those songwriters whose music attracts intense, serious individuals (predominantly men) like a lightbulb does moths. Individuals who, needless to say, hung on his every troubled word here, remaining reverentially hushed even during the long bouts of guitar tuning that preceded each song.
The Sun Kil Moon live experience is nothing if not testing, then, but neither is it unrewarding: current album April has yielded some fine cuts – amongst them the delicate, wistful Heron Blue and folksy, soulful number Tonight In Bilbao.
They proved beguiling standouts alongside main set-closing 14-minute epic Duk Koo Kim, a eulogy to a South Korean boxer who died in the ring.
Kozelek might lack the capacity his closest contemporary – American Music Club's Mark Eitzel – has for tempering gloomy tunes with a warm, chatty onstage persona, but he's still a far from mean-spirited performer, and returned to endearingly fumble his way into plaintive acoustic gem Glenn Tipton.
