Mark Kozelek - Mark Kozelek

Mark Kozelek's latest, self-titled album starts promisingly with proper music on This Is My Town.  But before long his long-winded yet bored-sounding groaned lyrics prove as off-putting as any of his last four or five albums.  There's nothing to be gained here by tediously dissecting every single track here.  What can be said about this album is there are some nice guitar parts on it, and it's considerably more musical than more recent efforts.

Emblematic of the album is the ten and a half minute The Mark Kozelek Museum, featuring him singing "diarrhoea, diarrhoea, diarrhoea".  In fairness to Kozelek, he sings with a degree of effort and melody on My Love For You Is Undying, a track which almost succeeds but is ultimately sunk by a thirteen minute running time.

The one standout here is Banjo Song, which opens with some gorgeous, nylon stringed guitar evocative of 2010's Admiral Fell Promises, and some real, tuneful singing by Kozelek.  The lyrics are pretty rubbish, though he does have a laugh at himself by singing "this is my banjo song but there's no banjo in this song at all".

In summary, the album is a distinct improvement on anything Mark Kozelek released in 2017.  But that, it has to be said, is a very low bar.