Damien Rice - 9

Damien Rice returns with his follow up to "O".

It's been a long wait since the day he announced he was ready to go back into the studio to record his follow up. I think his words were "Bigger, Rockier, More noise".

I expect nobody will be surprised that his new album is anything but that.

Once again, he is joined by his regulars; the gorgeous Lisa Hannigan providing backing vocal, although in my opinion she isn't featured anywhere near enough and Vyvienne Long accompanies on cello.

This is essentially more of same formula from his "O" album, but this time he's turned up the depressive love songs level up to 11 and of course everybody else's only goes up to 10. To say this CD should carry a health warning stating depressives, people recently dumped by their partners and chronic pessimists should avoid at ALL costs is an understatement. But don't let that put you off.

This is a near perfect collection of stories about relationships, told in such a moving and beautiful way, you can't help but be drawn in. His lyrics can be so twisted at times that each further listen paints a different picture. How wonderful is that!

In my eyes, having the first lines of the opening track on your album being sung by somebody else (Lisa Hannigan), that oozes confidence. The first track "9 Crimes" gives the listener a pretty good idea what they're in for. It's been lifted as the first single and I personally don't think he's a singles seller at all. This is essentially a duet between the two of them, telling each side of their tale, accompanied by piano, the cello and strings. As the song builds, some background percussion is added for tempo effect and it works really well.

"Elephant" has been around for ages now. Damien Rice fans who have sought out new music through frustration would recognize this song being previously touted as "The Blower's Daughter part 2". Again, we are treated to the acoustic and voice intro we have now become accustomed to, but about 3/4 of the way through, the band comes to life and rocks out alongside him while he questions the very point of his thoughts and even the nature of writing a song about them. Then we're back to just guitar and voice again as he tries to get some kind of closure out of it all.
Other songs on this album that will be familiar to some are "Me, My Yoke and I", "Grey Room" and "The Animals Were Gone".

The only uptempo songs are "Coconut Skins" and "Rootless Tree". The former, a clever ditty wrapped around a great piece of acoustic guitar. The melody sounds familiar and it's got "La La La La's" in it, and that's always a good thing, no? "Rootless Tree" sounds like good single potential, something that would gain lots of radio play. This guitar and general melody is 'Travis' country, nice and pleasant, then the chorus kicks in with him bellowing "Fuck you....Fuck You...." Possible not suitable for radio play then.

"Accidental Babies" is for me, the pinnacle of the album. Piano....his voice....that's it. No percussion, no bass, no orchestration. Nothing else. With this, the listener becomes wrapped up in a story of loss. A guy trying to understand where things went wrong, reminiscing over their relationship, questioning her reasons and her motives for leaving him for somebody else. There's also a dark sexual tone to this story. I find his words describing their physical relationship twisted beneath the lyrics.
This would be a perfect song to play in a film, at the part where the dumped guy has flashbacks about his previous relationship. In black and white of course. Oh and some slow motion too.

If this album were a rollercoaster ride, most of it would be the seemingly endless journey up that first climb. The struggle, the anticipation, the slightly uneasy feeling but all the time knowing that something amazing is just over the edge. Along with songs on "O", this just concludes that Damien Rice is indeed a brilliant story teller and everything is pointing in the direction of him having a longer shelf life than other singer songwriters.

The majority of this album is delivered for low key listening. This is a late night album to either have on repeat in the background or play on occasions when you really want to feel some emotion.

He has great gift of being able to draw the listener in while the story unfolds, then unleashes a wall of sound on the unsuspecting. "Me, My Yoke and I" is a prime example of that.
Whilst he's not an artist who's on the edge of becoming the worlds most popular singer songwriter, I think he's certainly somebody who can deliver on a (so far) consistently high level and for that alone I think there is much, much more to come from him.

I shall be filing this one in the "quite frequently" folder.