Mark Kozelek says he called the album "Benji" (referring to the movie where the protagonist is a dog) to give a lighter note to the album ... But the evocation of a nice dog who saves kidnapped children is not enough to make us forget the 1103 deceased which he alludes in the songs. Yes, 1103, I counted! Bulk, he sings the death of 918 deaths of the sect "People's Temple" Jim Jones, of 77 people killed by the Norwegian Anders Breivik, the wife of a friend of his father that ended the suffering his sick wife in shooting him in the head, James Gandolfini, the protagonist of The Sopranos, the serial killer Richard Ramirez, died of natural causes, victims of the latter, his grandmother, Elvis Presley , friends of him, a cousin and an uncle who died a few years apart, after throwing aerosols in a fire, John Bonham, the drummer of Led Zeppelin, etc. etc. Death is omnipresent in this album, and completely obscures the question that many people ask about the fact that he continues to release albums under the name of Sun Kil Moon, then so is the only member ... Kozelek dangerously approaching fifty and it shows. In a very simple style, with false naivety, Kozelek often tells his stories with this uninterrupted flow of words moving from one topic to another, from basic questions about such indifference to the killings of Americans face repeatedly, to chain on tiny personal details, such as the fact that he was eating Japanese noodles by drinking green tea when he learned the death of James Gandolfini ... Everything seems to be written in a very spontaneous way, since he often speaks to this, as when he says that "must take the flight the next day from 10:45" or "Richard Ramirez died today of natural causes," when he says that the drummer who is to come play drums on the album (Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth fire) is the same age as James Gandolfini was when he died, while the drummer plays on this same song. This obviously feels melancholy in music and in song: simple and inhabited his acoustic guitar is sometimes accompanied by instrumentation unadorned, with these discrete split choirs singing Mark Kozelek always strange way. But his reflections on death also lead to happily celebrate those who are alive, as his vibrant homage to his mother on "I can not live without my mother's love," her father on "I love my dad" at his friend musician Ben Gibbard (The Postal Service, Death Cab For Cutie) "Ben's My Friend", or when he tells in detail his sexual awakening and different women associated with it on "Dogs".
