Sun Kil Moon - Benji
Critic Score
Based on 28 reviews
2014 Ratings: #20 / 1042
Year End Rank: #10
User Score
2014 Rank: #20
Liked by 183 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
The Independent

One of the truest, wisest albums you’ll ever hear.

100
Pretty Much Amazing

The sparse musical arrangements and haunting production only serve to heighten the album’s intimacy and ultimately render it a masterpiece of reflection and introspection, destined to be played on repeat in scores of late-night, tired, and lonely rooms. 

92
Pitchfork

While Benji is consumed with death, sadness, mourning, and tragedy, there's gratitude within all this melancholy and it’s actually Kozelek’s least depressing and most life-affirming record

90
Drowned in Sound

Benji contains some of the most evocative songs about mortality and youth that have ever been written.

90
Uncut

Benji is brutally sad, which may prove a deal-breaker for anyone who appreciated the comparatively light Among the Leaves, but it never feels gratuitous or exploitative.

90
Exclaim!

It isn't easy listening, akin to catching up with an over-sharing friend going through troubled times, but the stories are sad, funny and surprising, and the rewards are plentiful.

90
The Line of Best Fit

On Benji, and even more particularly on some of the live versions featured on the additional disc that accompanies the first ten thousand copies, Mark Kozelek is at least as piercing and persuasive as in his best output over the last two decades.

90
Sputnikmusic

By the end of Benji, death is on the mind for the rest of us too. The mood is drab, but it's so masterfully put together you can't help but be sucked in to the bleak reality of Kozelek's existence. 

90
FACT Magazine

Though Mark Kozelek has few equals when it comes to dislodging lumps in throats, Benji is his most emotionally taxing Sun Kil Moon record by some way.

90
The 405

The songs feature remarkably detailed scenes from Kozelek's life, but by attaching them to the universal theme of death he gives them much more gravitas. Somehow, despite all the personal details, this seems far from self-indulgent.

90
No Ripcord

Kozelek creates because it’s his need, a blessing that cannot be wasted. And Benji is his way of showing gratitude to those who enriched his life to its greatest capacity.

90
Tiny Mix Tapes

The whole production would be grotesquely comical if it didn’t feel so unflinchingly, unapologetically sincere. And here’s the thing. Benji doesn’t resonate in spite of its awkwardness, but wholly because of it. 

83
Consequence of Sound

By keeping things simple and letting it all hang out, the singer manages to add another solid batch of darkly confessional indie folk tracks to his already hefty CV.

80
FasterLouder
Kozelek’s reflections are profound and arresting, not to mention necessary listening for anyone grappling with their own mortality.
80
The Observer

Benji, roughly his 13th album, might well be this difficult artist's most direct work, possibly the most devastating this career melancholic has ever penned.

80
Northern Transmissions

Middle age suits Kozelek well ... as he’s grown into his personality as a lyricist. A bit jaded, but sounding as contented as we’ve ever heard him.

80
musicOMH

Kozelek is a songwriter operating with audacity and confidence, composing wry and forthright confessionals that investigate areas of everyday darkness and despair too rarely explored in popular song.

80
Mojo
It sounds wonderful.
80
PopMatters

Sardonic, scathingly witty at times, and always painfully autobiographical, Benji is the sound of an artist giving his heart to his fans and saying, “Do with it what you will.” 

80
NME

Kozelek has a novelist’s eye for detail, and right from languid opener ‘Carissa’ – a song about his second cousin – he paints a vivid world and invites you to see it through his eyes.

80
SPIN

This guy has written 40-plus albums of material, so it's saying something that Benji is one of his more challenging listens.

70
Rolling Stone

Folk singer Mark Kozelek's remarkable sixth album as Sun Kil Moon feels less like a collection of songs than a series of eulogies delivered in real time. 

70
Spectrum Culture

Still, that random flow of memories and thoughts can be a fascinating one, and Benji may earn a spot in the upper echelon among the dozens of records this prolific artist has released. One thing’s for sure: his mom is gonna love it.

68
Paste

Kozelek’s lack of reservation here is something to be begrudgingly admired, as his willingness to make yet another album that is solely for himself and those obsessive fans who want all the gory details of his past. For the rest of the world, there’s not much here to make any real connection with.

60
AllMusic

It's so intimate, the listener is, by definition, a voyeur. His hardcore following will no doubt celebrate it abundantly. Given its willful indulgence, however, others may find it a tipping point in the other direction.

60
Q Magazine

Not his most graceful, but certainly his most strikingly personal, Benji is another colourful stop on Kozelek's glorious journey into the light.

55
Under the Radar

Overall, your enjoyment of this album will depend on your patience and appreciation for Kozelek's idiosyncrasies. Sometimes he pulls it off wonderfully, and other times listeners might wish he'd left a little more to the imagination.

BradTasteMusic
89

This album is fantastic and I literally didn't care for this southern folk sound until I heard this. The writing is unreal. It is excellent front to back

halbery
90

CW: Discussions of abuse, bigotry, and trauma.

I'm not the kind of person who cries to music very often. I definitely get some chills here and there, and even get a little misty-eyed sometimes, but I rarely get emotional to music to the point that I'm sobbing. Benji got me to that point.

The seventh track on Benji, "I Love My Dad", was what really did it for me. Up until that point, I was able to tell the album was sad, but I hadn't been looking at the lyrics. When I finally did ... read more

pizzagrande
34

it's long when you don't want to listen to his random stories and shit u dont care about. if i wanted a story i'd read a book

94

i dont know why i emotionally connect with this album so much.. but something about this guys storytelling is so vivid and incredible. but he’s a fucking asshole so fuck him

_shymc_
100

Absolutely loved getting lost in the stories

VeraBlyat
95

Emocionalmente rompedor. Una belleza instrumental casi inigualable.

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Added on: December 14, 2013