Generations of mopes have come of age to the songs of Mark Kozelek, first as lead singer of Red House Painters, then as an unlikely AC/DC tribute act, and most recently as head of Sun Kil Moon. In all his various incarnations, Kozelek has mastered a sort of wounded gentility, which works best amid warmly Nick Drake-ian acoustic arrangements.
The title track from Sun Kil Moon's new Admiral Fell Promises fits that bill perfectly: While inadvertently summing up virtually his entire recorded output in a few words ("black and blue and beautiful"), it's an almost impossibly lovely and tender plea to a would-be lover. Perhaps the least lascivious come-on in the history of seduction, "Admiral Fell Promises" alternates between reassurance ("Come into my arms and let your worries die") and obsession ("Let me lock you in my room and keep you for a while"). But the effect is unmistakably romantic and sweet: Kozelek may allude to bondage, but "Admiral Fell Promises" is nothing if not one long, slow, sweet plea for permission.
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