Sun Kil Moon frontman Mark Kozelek’s second album under his own name is a gripping collection of slow-burn acoustic covers of songs by acts as varied as Yes, The Misfits and Sonny & Cher. Amazingly, he finds unity through the melancholy of “I Got You Babe”, the biting chromaticism of Godflesh’s “Like Rats” and the ballad-style sweep of Bad Brains’ “I”. The most impressive transformations here are Bruno Mars’ pop banger “Young Girls” as a sentimental folk song—and making The Misfits’ grungy “Green Hell” weirdly inviting.
- Bill Callahan
- William Fitzsimmons
- Francesco De Gregori
- Great Lake Swimmers
- Nathaniel Rateliff
- Gregory Alan Isakov
- Alexi Murdoch