Mat Sweet lives in a world that's interesting to visit, but not somewhere I'd want to live. The rainbows are pitch black, it rains blood, and the sun seems inclined to simply avoid the place. Lion Devours the Sun, his second album as Boduf Songs, is even more downcast than the first, placing a greater accent on the drone and quiet noise of the debut.
It certainly creates a stark mood, made all the more intense by Sweet's whispering, close-mic'd delivery-- he makes Iron & Wine's Sam Beam sound operatic. The liners indicate the album was recorded at home, and it sounds like Sweet was trying not wake the baby while he worked on it-- even the noise registers just over the threshold of consciousness. This approach yields some amazing songs, intimate and in-your-face poetic ramblings that tend to circle back to death. "Two Across the Mouth" is bookended by the line "I built a house from my mistakes," and in between it's a word-painting of malice and paranoia, with an acoustic guitar for a canvas.
"Green Lion Devours the Sun, Blood Descends to Earth" needs little more explanation than its title, built as it is on a lone drum and one muted, molten electric guitar that hangs on notes for what seems like ages as Sweet sings about blood, clipped wings and black stars. "27th Raven's Head (Darkness Showing Through the Head of the Raven)" is almost unbearably quiet and murderous, and the darkness in the lyrics finally spills over the top with this passage, possibly about George W. Bush: "Dumb luck/stupid fuck/crowned as a holy king/bless with a rotten tongue/pigs blood and sparrow wing spat from a wretched mouth/sweet song of heresy." As gripping as this stuff can be, it can also descend into overkill.
Sweet sticks to his vision of a world gone rotten from the core, a malignant place where noises like the sound of a pick scraping strings are actually kind of a relief. His steadfastness is his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, but even though it occasionally over-ripens, Lion Devours the Sun is a good soundtrack for a long, hard brood.
