Hilken Mancini and Chris Colbourn
Issue #26
Hilken Mancini and Chris Colbourn (Kimchee)
By Dean Ramos
Published: December 1st, 2005 | 4:06pm
Although the mid ’90s really weren’t that long ago, when Hilken Mancini (guitarist-vocalist of Fuzzy) and Chris Colbourn (bassist-vocalist of Buffalo Tom) get together, one can’t help but get nostalgic for the days of 120 Minutes,Reality Bites, and the seminal teen soap My So-Called Life. Once the nostalgia has passed, however, listeners will come to realize that good music is good music, no matter what decade it has its roots in.
On their eponymously titled album, Mancini and Colbourn take a step more in the pop than indie direction, but do so on their own terms. Unlike the likes of, say, Liz Phair, you get the feeling that Mancini and Colbourn created this music not for fame or fortune, but simply because this is the kind of music they wanted to make, regardless of the response. Without a doubt, this disc is filled with the standard tracks of love, loss, and longing, but is presented in a way that’s so sincere and honest that it’s hard not to be won over.
A few standouts include the Mancini-sung “Wedding Cake,” which has to be the sweetest and most earnest ode to matrimony this side of indie rock, the piano-driven “Moonbeams,” where Colbourn so very clearly wears his heart on his sleeve, and “Situations Count,” where listeners come to realize that no two voices have ever sounded so perfect together.
Probably the best way to describe this collaboration, though, is that it’s like the comfort you get from your favorite sweater on a crisp fall day or the familiarity of the coffeehouse that you spend your lazy Sunday afternoons in. And although Mancini and Colbourn have never collaborated before, this album feels that good.
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