Colors of Home

Colors of Home is Kill Creek's first real album in four years. Colors of Home finds Kill Creek, once again, acutely reflective and powerfully dark. But in contrast to 1997's oppressively cynical Proving Winter Cruel, Colors of Home sounds, well, a little upbeat. The disintegration that suffocated St. Valentine's Garage is gone; its immediacy and energy are reprised. Colors of Home is an urgent record, compressing 10 songs and 1,100 words into 31 minutes, the way albums were intended. The lyrics and stories are still striking and universal, but these are archetypes for a slightly different age than previous Kill Creek recordings. They are more about life than a life. With newfound thematic breadth and afflictive observation, the resulting stories are touching rather than pitiful. And all this is somehow quilted out of contagious enthusiasm for settled lyrical and melodic passion.

Gray and Gilhousen join Born, Grassy, and Hayes at their most concise; all five are playing with a facility for knowing when not to play. Kill Creek has returned with a more refined knack for their sudden silences and bombastic tumult -- unashamed by lavish pop-hooks, they are in stride: ornate, sparse, dense, and understated. And Colors of Home finds Kill Creek at home: Colors of Home was recorded by Kill Creek-omniscient Ed Rose (Get Up Kids, Anniversary, Casket Lottery, Reggie and the Full Effect). They are joined in performance by Rose and Kill Creek friends Julie Shields (Shallow, The Capsules), Nathan Ellis and Stacey Hilt (Coalesce, Casket Lottery), Tawni Freeland (Frogpond, Glitter Kicks), and Kansas City jazz notable Tommy Johnson.