Old Ramon

Taken as a whole, Old Ramon is a brilliant mopey stroll through San Francisco's slate gray streets.

With the release of Old Ramon, Kozelek shows he's capable of sustained inspiration.... It's Kozelek's most successful LP: consistent, heartbreakingly sad and filled with gems that will linger in his fans' psyches. [#49, p.85]

Although they were written as early as 1996 and recorded in 1997-98, the songs on Old Ramon (like most Red House Painters material) have a timeless, dreamy quality to them that prevent them from sounding stale. An album this beautiful can never come too late.

Old Ramon is sinuous and unhurried, a beautiful downer of a folk rock record that has the lithe and shadowy promise of the ocean.

Much of the Painters’ power stems from Kozelek’s arresting voice, which meets its deep, moody match in the band’s exquisite renderings of rootsy gothic grace.

Many slower outfits-- Low, American Music Club, Codeine, et al.-- are sometimes pinned with the theory that if you've heard one of their albums, you've heard them all. Such is no longer the case with the Red House Painters.

While Kozelek consistently sustains beauty that's equal parts stately and awkward, Old Ramon's songs don't quite live up to the career highlights that dominate the warmer Ocean Beach or the more emotionally gripping Red House Painters (the one with the roller-coaster, not the bridge, on its cover). Still, after such a long involuntary hiatus, it's worth the several listens it takes to fully digest Old Ramon.

The album's long-delayed release only makes its joyous sound that much more refreshing; its inviting mix of gentle and fuzzy guitars and Kozelek's empathetic vocals make it the Painters' most hopeful, accessible work.

Unlike past efforts, the songs don't overstay their welcome, evoking more smile-enducing moments than one would come to expect from RHP

Across Old Ramon's sprawling 70-minute set, Kozelek is still a master of his sly charade, disguising sprawling webs of complex guitar chords and considered narratives as humble, simple acoustic ditties.

Wade through a couple of outtake-sounding openers that consist mainly of mechanical strumming on an acoustic 12-string and Kozelek's duo-toned vocals and you'll be rewarded with some of the his most fully realized songs to date.

They're the sentiments and sounds of West Coast rock becalmed and quietened, stripped of fretwanking excess, and invested with a warmth that transcends cliché. A fortunate, if belated release, and a tragedy averted.

It would have been a shame if this album went unheard, as it is the most fully realized Painters album to date and finds the band, as well as Kozelek's songwriting, in peak form.

But as wonderful as parts of Old Ramon are, the spaces between the high points are at times, less than impressive.