Rock 'N' Roll Singer, with its inclusion of three AC/DC songs, calls to mind the Red House Painters' 1994 EP Shock Me, built around a reworking of the Ace Frehley song. However, Kozelek provides a much more radical reading of "Rock 'N' Roll Singer" than Shock Me did of its title cut by slowing the pace to a crawl and rolling out the testosterone-drenched lyrics in a quiet, understated and almost menacing rumble. The result turns Bon Scott's ego-heavy ode to hard-rock stardom into a low meditation on the modest fame that has rightly come to Kozelek for being one of the more interesting songwriters of the 1990s, as well as a dour comment on his protracted and semi-public battle with 4AD over his output with the Red House Painters. When he lets out with a breathy "By the time I was half alive/I knew what I was gonna be," you get the feeling that Kozelek's half alive even as he sings the words; he's earned the right to claim the title.
The other covers -- "You Ain't Got a Hold on Me," "Bad Boy Boogie" and John Denver's "Around and Around" -- are just as interesting, but it's the three evenly spaced original tracks that are the best argument for why Kozelek ought to be a lot more widely appreciated than he is.
"Find Me, Ruben Olivares," the opener, could have fit easily on any Nick Drake album, while "Metropol 47," deceptively melodic and upbeat, is a moving sketch of solitude and the brief connection between two people wandering in unfamiliar territory.
The EP's standout track, however, is the closing number, "Ruth Marie," a haunting first-person account of a woman aging alone in a nursing home, speaking her summing-up words to her daughters. A lovely song performed utterly without a trace of sentiment or condescension, it's worth the price of the EP by itself; and it ought to encourage those who haven't heard Kozelek to check out his work with the RHP, something much in need of reappraisal.