The longer he goes, the better it is

Sun Kil Moon

April (Caldo Verde)

ESSENTIAL "Blue Orchids"

It's eight minutes into the opening track "Lost Verses." Mark Kozelek is deep into channeling a lovelorn Nick Drake, singing over chiming 12-string guitar and a gentle bed of strings, when the song punches into a repeating coda of distorted, off-the-cuff guitar chords, leaving us humming the memorable refrain. "April," the third Sun Kil Moon album by Kozelek and friends, has several such sweet spots, the kind we hope will never end. Though it sometimes seems the songs won't - five of the 11 tracks run over seven minutes - it's easy to be swept up in Kozelek's droning mix of folk and grunge melodies and lyrics that murmur like a fragile soul. Dreariness is offset by gorgeous music - the baroque, dark dream of "Heron Blue," or harp-like, finger-picked folk as on "Blue Orchids." And the album does rock - check the ascending beehive buzz of the 10-minute "Tonight the Sky." Even when it sounds like Kozelek is plugging himself into one of those "son of" equations - "lovechild of Neil Young and Phil Ochs reworking the Fairport Convention songbook" - the payoffs are golden. [Tristram Lozaw]

Mark Kozelek plays a sold-out show with Marissa Nadler at the Museum of Fine Arts tomorrow.