Product Description

The band's debut finds singer/songwriter Mark Kozelek picking up where people like Tim Buckley and Nick Drake left off,combining delicate, folky melodies with ambitious song structures and no small amount of alienation. The band also bears a debt to the American Music Club in more ways than one. AMC's Mark Eitzel helped secure the Painters their first record deal with 4AD, and COLORFUL HILL sounds like nothing so much as a scaled-down version of American Music Club's fractured folk-rock desolation.
The young Kozelek comes off as the ultimate bedroom poet, agonised over the approach of "24" and getting worked up about troubles with friends and girlfriends ("Lord Kill the Pain", "Michael"). Thanks to the starkness of the arrangements, the uniqueness and consistency of Kozelek's vision, and the winning mix of artifice and honesty, things never get too precious. Uniformly slow tempos and spare, angular guitar work dominate, while Kozelek's humble but pretty voice floats through the songs like a ghost with a chip on its shoulder.

Track Listing

1. Twenty Four
2. Medicine Bottle
3. Down Colorful Hill
4. Japanese To English
5. Lord Kill The Pain
6. Michael

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32642 in Music
• Released on: 1993-12-31
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Lord Kill the Rest
I should hate this. I should hate Red House Painters. It's not my thing. Introspective, confessional, not my bag. But a friend lent me this about 14 years ago and it never goes a week or two without a play. Truly amazing from start to finish, these (4 track demo) songs are the ultimate debut from any band. Just buy everything they've done. it will be worth it. Glass of red at the ready. And yes I found Old Ramon dissapointing, but not terrible. Kozalek is the most overlooked voice in the last decade and a half.

Down Colorful Hill
Given that "Down Colorful Hill" was the Red House Painters' foray, its maturity and depth seems remarkable. Standout tracks are hard to choose from such a consistently rewarding album, but "Medecine Bottle", with its emotionally charged imagery, and "Michael", a touching elegy, perhaps narrowly serve as the finest. The music throughout is of true beauty and Kozelek's lyrics and vocals intense with raw, brutally honest sentiment. Highly recommended for anyone willing to immerse themselves Mark Kozelek's highly refined melancholy, which ironically guarantees much joy.

Good but not great
I like this album but unlike proper RHP fans I much prefer the later release 'Old Ramon'. On 'Down Colorful Hill' the misery seems a little youthful and inward looking. Perhaps it's more like hardcore melancholia this way, with loads of reverb and lyrics about soulsearching and wanting to die etc. Perhaps most RHP fans are a tad younger than me and can better connect with these sentiments. I think this album has a lot of good ideas and really captures that slow misery we all sometimes feel, but if you want a more mature, reflective approach to melancholia, with a more acoustic sound and tighter songwriting then check out Old Ramon.