Death, death, death, death, death, if George RR Martin picked up a guitar he would be more than likely to produce an album like ‘Benji’, where Mark Kozalek introduces and deeply maps out intriguing and likable characters before killing them off about 3 minutes in. Usually by an exploding spray paint can strangely enough, this whole album is almost a PSA announcement on the safety of pressurised gas cannisters. ‘Benji’ is definitely the record to go for if you really fancy a good hour of facing up to your own mortality and how life is essentially so dispensable and easily removable. If these tales are true, while being meaningless to the record’s essential power, it’s hard to think of any recent record so doused in personal tragedy other than Eels’ ‘Electro-Shock Blues’ Oh yeah, and it’s very, very good too. Brilliant in fact. Despite the record’s general moroseness it’s also frequently hilarious, almost counter-intuitively life-affirming and the fact that it’s almost 60 minutes of unstopped lyrics means there’s no other album this year that will possibly reward repeated listens. Sadly there’s nothing here that can quite match War On Drugs: Suck My Cock.
This isn’t the real cover is it?
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