When alt-rock was dominated by the thick, sludgy sound of grunge, San Francisco's Red House Painters dared to create fragile, quietly beautiful records filled with just as much emotional discord as anything out of Seattle. Their second album (and the first of two self-titled releases) finds the band opening out from the spare bleakness of their debut, ticking up some of the tempos a touch and broadening the production approach. While the sound is still based around Mark Kozelek's delicate folk-rock tunes and nakedly emotional lyrics, touches like the backing vocal choir of "Take Me Out" and the slowly building atmospheric wash of sound on "Katy Song" take RHP to a new level.