Given the subject matter of singer-guitarist Mark Kozelek’s lyrics – his own experiences and reactions to them – “Universal Themes” is a bit of a misnomer for his 14th album. The mumbled splurges of Kozelek’s non-rhyming narrative come so thick and fast that it’s hard to keep up. But you can catch snatches: real-life incidents are recalled (in Little Rascals, looking after an ageing cat; in Garden of Lavender, a 1998 Gomez gig; in Ali/Spinks 2, the death of a family friend) that reveal his hang-ups and tastes. The songs of Sun Kil Moon – pretty much an alias for Kozelek, though he is accompanied here by former Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley – veer off on tangents. On the stark epic The Possum, just when you think Kozelek’s hit upon a hook, he stops and does something else entirely. There are spoken segments, garage-rock and pretty acoustic passages, too, but his default setting is intimate and minimal.
