Red House Painters – Down Colorful Hill – Album Review

Red House Painters – Down Colorful Hill – Album Review by Joshua Reedy.

(1992)

My copy: 2015 reissue by 4AD.

After bringing their brooding, emotional take on independent rock to San Francisco, Red House Painters managed to impress 4AD boss Ivo Watts-Russell with a lengthy demo tape that contained selections that would appear on their debut LP. Being at the forefront of the ‘90s slowcore movement, singer Mark Kozelek backed these quietly haunting instrumentals with lyrics that matched or overtook the music in sheer vulnerability.

The subtle intentionality held within the creeping guitar of “24” matches beautifully with the morose sentiments of the lyrics; these cathartic melodies eventually delving into a darker vibrato-tipped dissonance so as to explore a deeper self-resentment. “Medicine Bottle” is an utter masterpiece: a nine minute (borderline Shakespearean) tragedy that erects tense, paranoid towers of rhythm with warm production serving as a smile-bearing mask for the uneasy, at times insidious progressions that conceptually tie into the relational drama of the voice. The tender “Japanese To English” rocks gingerly under its protagonist’s desire to convey his love across a language barrier, capping off the A-side.

The title track stands as the longest piece, with wistfully rolling drums capped by ghostly yet powerful howls. “Lord Kill The Pain” is the closest thing they have to a rock anthem, like a stunted form of rockabilly with twisted, churning distortion and a sardonic, narcissist’s edge in the vocals. Closer “Michael” heart-wrenchingly chronicles Kozelek’s search for a long lost childhood friend, preying on a universal sense of longing for the fleeting memories and feelings of a more precious time.

Down Colorful Hill is a pained, nervous expression of insecurity and poetic fragility. It is surely the peak of slowcore lyricism and in the pantheon for alternative rock in general. The guitars crackle in a slow-burning din, though they never overwhelm or explode directly. Only the title track lingers too long, although they manage to work dynamic moments into each track, proving themselves as true masters of subtlety.

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