On I Also Want to Die in New Orleans, Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek seems to be asking a question that has been expressed over the course of his discography for years: How does a person live in a world where death and cruelty exist, especially when the victims are undeserving?

The album offers a whopping 90 minutes spread out over just seven songs. Each song feels like a personal diary entry of Kozelek’s stream of consciousness set to melancholic, jazzy instrumentals.

Perhaps the gravest song on the album, “Day in America,” opens with an account of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the thoughts in Kozelek’s head as he tries to grapple with the event, before shifting the scene to a show he played with friends of his, and then later speaking more on the matter of the shooting. The song is truly an odyssey of emotion, with the focus shifting between Kozelek’s somber thoughts juxtaposed with the description of him playing music and even making witty remarks about himself before again returning to his introspection.

The album’s fourth track, “Cows,” features Kozelek’s personal turmoil over the idea of eating meat and the struggle of giving it up set to harmonic background vocals and a familiar downbeat instrumental.

The album as a whole features the use of horns throughout, giving the songs a strange feeling of beauty, despite the rambling, spoken-word nature of the lyrics.

If looked at as a purely musical piece, the album does little special and could be criticized as a heavy handed and boring experience. However, the thematic value, social commentary, and introspection of I Also Want to Die in New Orleans picks up the slack left by the bare, repetitive instrumentals, and replaces it with a true insight into the competing emotions of Kozelek.

This is a strong album, and it is without a doubt true to Sun Kil Moon’s signature feel.