Search - Mark Kozelek :: Lost Verses Live

If You Want Live Albums, You Got It

armenianthunder | los angeles | 05/12/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Much like his previous live releases, this album presents Mark Kozelek at his unadorned best, in quiet, majestic settings like San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts, joined only by frequent collaborator Phil Carney on acoustic guitar. All the tracks (except the cover of the standard "Send in the Clowns" and the Red House Painters classic "Katy Song") come from the Sun Kil Moon songbook (particularly 2008's watershed, stripped-down masterpiece, April), and they generally don't stray far from the original studio recordings. However, some of the newer songs (particularly the slow, intertwining Spanish guitars of "Heron Blue") reveal entirely new depths in this live setting, when slowed down even further. Overall, the atmosphere is less sterile than 2006's Little Drummer Boy, with more audience interaction, capturing the feeling of an actual show, despite having been recorded over a year in a half dozen locations around the world.



Having recently discovered the economic benefits of releasing his music on his own label, Kozelek has issued numerous live solo recordings in recent years, and admittedly, there is not always much to distinguish the numerous recordings, either from their original studio versions, or from themselves, yet most Kozelek fans will tell you that they can't get enough of that sad, sweet voice, and those gorgeous, melancholy, open-tuned songs. However, this listener hopes that Koz is not going the way of the Grateful Dead, issuing studio albums once a decade, and paying the rent with endless live recordings, which will be snapped up by his modest but faithful following. That said, Lost Verses Live *is* a great live album, but one hopes it won't be another five years for an album of new, original material. He is, above all, a phenomenal songwriter, capable of making dynamic albums in full-band settings, his one-of-a-kind voice and able guitar playing augmented by subtle but interesting instrumental shadings. But if Kozelek wants to fill the waiting time with a handful of solo live albums, his fans will probably not mind. At least, not for a while."