Red House Painters
Red House Painters II - Bridge

Sometimes we witness events that leave us speechless, that for a fleeting moment make us forget everything else, the difficulties, the tasks, the quarrels, the problems. Those fractions of a second when we feel at peace with the universe, when everything seems to slip away and despite a difficult world, there is a sense that everything might just be okay. I don't know if you've ever felt engulfed by a benign resignation that saps your strength and will to act. That's what I felt again after listening to "Bridge" (conventional title), the third album by Red House Painters, the creation of Mark Kozelek, after a childhood spent in the sterile corridors of a rehab center for drug addicts.

It is resignation that permeates "Red House Painters II - Bridge". Kozelek pours all his dark lyricism into 8 desolate yet necessary tracks, a perfect reflection of his interior suffocating awareness that nothing can change. This is not expressed only through slowcore, folk, or singer-songwriter music. It is expressed through art, the kind that few can claim to have understood and produced. Whether it's the decadent art of "Evil" or the fresh and at the same time painful air of "Bubble" it matters little. It's music understood in its most artistically fulfilling sense and its utmost sublimation, "Blindfold", will remain a gem carved into the hearts and minds of all those who have the courage to discover, appreciate, and cherish it. Because pearls like this stay inside you for a long time and for various reasons, tied to a memory, a word, a gesture...

1. "Evil" (7:20)
2. "Bubble" (5:31)
3. "I Am A Rock" (5:32)
4. "Helicopter" (5:22)
5. "New Jersey" (4:24)
6. "Uncle Joe" (5:58)
7. "Blindfold" (8:25)
8. "The Star Spangled Banner" (2:28)