A double album, Red House Painters features fourteen songs culled from bandleader Mark Kozelek's back-catalog.

Kozelek's lyrics focus on themes of pain, desolation and loss, while musically the album runs from the folk-pop of "Grace Cathedral Park" to the shoegaze of "Mistress" to the stark "New Jersey" and onto the soundscapes of "Funhouse" and "Mother".

In a contemporary review, James Greer of Spin wrote that Red House Painters "rewards patient listening with a rare and sublime ecstasy.

Club later cited Red House Painters as Mark Kozelek's "crowning achievement in a discography that has placed him alongside the greatest songwriters of all time".

While the sleeve lists "Strawberry Hill" as the album version, it is in fact an edit, which removes roughly 50 seconds of guitar noise in the beginning of the song.