Damien Rice new album '9' full preview legal

mada999

here it is

http://www.irishabroad.com/music/

I don't really think that the album is that good tho

tywy

it's not that good?!? It's frickin brilliant! Pity my copy I got today was scratched, I'll have to bring it back tomorrow

mada999

are you serious ?? I've been listening to it for the past few days and I have to say I'd give it only 6/10... dogs/9 crimes are good the rest imo are not that good ... tis a damn shame...

John

I picked it up this evening but haven't played it yet.

John

Just on the last song now. It's a good album, not as strong as O though. The songs that I've heard live are clicking with me more as they're more familiar to me. This will need a few spins before a proper opinion can be formed.

dSTAR

I'm lovin' it...

/Andy\

Haven't listened to it yet and I'm kind of afraid to! I loved O, and want to like the new album, but I read a review which accused Rice of trying to indulge himself vocally Jeff Buckley style. As Buckley was one of a kind and possibly my favourite vocallist of all time, I shudder to imagine the consequences of Rice trying (and no doubt failing), to emulate him! You guys that have listened to the record, please tell me that the review isn't true?

John

There's a couple of melodies that are a bit Buckleyish but he's always been a bit Buckleyish. I say go for it.

Skittlebrau

Have only given it a couple of listens but am disappointed with it so far. Hopefully it's a grower. Couple of great songs but seems to be a lot of filler.

Early impressions - not as good as O

Closing Doors

I think its too soon to compare it to O but on first impression I'm really loving it. They really nailed Elephant, it sends chills down my spine.

I take it everybody found the hidden track (not the 15 minute drone after Sleep Don't Weep )

iFight

It sounds really good, still only on first listen

duckmusic

What Damien Rice has done in this album is taken the music from his old album and sung new lyrics over it. So disappointing from someone who has so much talent. All he has done is resold me an album I already bought 5 years ago. Listening to it I can hear exact copies of Volcano, The professor and Cold water. This is on top of the fact that the one of the only original songs on the album (rootless tree) has been available on the internet for years. Think it came from his Juniper days :mad:

iFight

Which is the exact copy of Volcano?

And Me, my yoke, and I sounds completely different to anything on O

Third_Echelon

Damien Rice.... Yawn....

Nice to see people are waking up to his bore-tastic re-hashed music. Some of the songs from 'O' were good... But a whole 2 albums of him is just enough to make me want to run and take a long jump from a short bridge... :rolleyes:

duckmusic

iFight wrote:

Which is the exact copy of Volcano?

And Me, my yoke, and I sounds completely different to anything on O

It is "Me my yoke, and I" that sound exactly like volcano. Its the same chords and the same strumming patter.

Sleep don't weep is the same as cold water.
etc. etc. etc

iFight

duckmusic wrote:

It is "Me my yoke, and I" that sound exactly like volcano. Its the same chords and the same strumming patter.

Doesn't sound anything like it to me.

Just listened to Volcano, my bad, sounds a bit like it

Still, I like 'Me, My Yoke, and I'.

chump

So disappointed. Where's the progression?

Been there, sung that. Come on bejaysus - something a bit different to the last album.

eamon234

I don't know what all the fuss is about this bloke he's one of the most over-rated Irish artists there is the scruffy little out-of-tune boll1x.
Boring!

tywy

I don't think Me My Yoke and I sounds like Volcano...

Plus everyone who says this is just like O...listen to the lyrics, it is so far from O...his lyrics are much more mature, it's a much deeper album.

I'm impressed with this album. The Animals Were Gone is such a great song. He did Accidental Babies really well too.

I think the only mistake was putting Me My Yoke and I on the album, he wrote it when he was 15 or 16 so it doesn't really fit.

John

I can hear the similarities between this and O and I must admit that "Me, My Yoke and I" sounds an awful lot like "Volcano" (and so do a lot of people as whenever Rice plays this live the crowd gets excited and then confused). However I do think it's a good album and I do think the songs can stand on their own.

tywy

I suppose it's kinda like it but I've never been confused between it and Volcano at a gig...it's so obvious when he starts Volcano, he distorts the guitar and then vyvienne comes in on the cello...that doesn't happen with Me My Yoke and I as far as I remember

John

Yeah but the amount of times I've seen "Volcano" played differently and the fact that "Me, My Yoke and I" sounds so similar makes confusing for me.

MrJoeSoap

John wrote:

There's a couple of melodies that are a bit Buckleyish but he's always been a bit Buckleyish. I say go for it.

Which bits? Must have a listen... :cool:

cartman

there was only one song on it that i didnt know, that was sleep dont weep, i thought after all this time it would be alot better, its not bad though, he should have made it more rock like he said he was gonna do, its along the same lines as O, he should made it darker etc..

not bad though, im pissed i bought it though, coz elephant and dogs are just renamed from blowers daughter part 2 and the girl that does yoga!

tywy

the lyrics are darker I think...

he said in an interview that he wanted to make a rock album but this was what came out when he started to write

Closing Doors

cartman wrote:

not bad though, im pissed i bought it though, coz elephant and dogs are just renamed from blowers daughter part 2 and the girl that does yoga!

Well in fairness it was never called Girl That Does Yoga, that just seemed like the most logical title when the mp3s were circulating

symbolic

I think the album is alright,

when me my yoke and i kics in it reminds me of the Redneck Manifesto's Dillon family dancers tune when that kicks in.. exactly the same they are if ya ask me, but what would i know...do-dooo-do-doooo.

idlesupernova

It's clicked with me after first listen, I was never keen on O but I had a spare few quid bought this and just have it on constantly, I Belive him when he's singing, some singer-songwriters, I just dont believe them when they sing.

TempestSabre

Have to say I don't get the hype. I watched him on Jules Holland the other night. It was an ok performance, but I wouldn't say I dislike his music it just does nothing for me.

Attractive Nun

I loved O, and there are certainly some great moments on this album ('9 Crimes', 'The Rat Within the Grain') but overall I'd have to call this a distinctly average affair. Both Damien and Lisa both have incredible voices, very emotive and tender, but there isn't all that much more to Damien Rice than that. 9, at times, displays a startlingly lack of innovation or originality.

'Elephant', 'Dogs', 'Grey Room' - nice tracks, no doubt, but we've heard their kind before, and from the same person. 'Rootless Trees' is embarrassingly generic, its immature refrain is almost cringeworthy - that it will probably make for a successful single is an indictment of something, be it Damien himself or the consuming public. When he does attempt something a little different à la 'Me, My Yoke, And I', it's a poor effort. Added to the mix are 9's lyrics, which appropriately lie somewhere between the mediocre and the clichéd ('You can wait for ages / And watch your compost turn to coal / But time is contagious: Everybody's getting old').

It's not a bad album, if you like all of O, you'll like most of 9. For anyone who likes unfair comparisons, I'd say most of 9 is on a par with the lesser songs on O, which isn't bad at all. The real disappointment is how little such a promising artist has progressed. It's far too easy to conclude like this, but he wrote his own review in the album's finale, 'Go play with your piano / Write a mediocre song / Out this shell of mediocrity / And pretend there's nothing wrong'.

tywy

Rat Within the Grain is the B-side to 9 Crimes, it isn't actually on the album.

Attractive Nun

Whoops. Very strong single in that case, I really like that song.

Mongo

I think there are some good songs on it but it's no major progression. "O" is much stronger.And I feel cheated by Me My Yoke and I, exact same strum and chordpattern of volcanoes.Don't ya think Damo woulda noticed it?

tywy

well he's kinda like leonard cohen, it's not so much about the melody as it is about the lyrics, Sleep Don't Weep is very similar to Cold Water...Elephant has the same chords as The Blower's Daughter except for one minor chord.

iFight

tywy wrote:

.Elephant has the same chords as The Blower's Daughter except for one minor chord.

Elephant was going to be called The Blower's Daughter Part 2, according to wiki anyway



Really loving 9 at the minute, Rootless Tree and 9 Crimes are my favourites.

tywy

yeah it was called that unofficially, like dogs was called the girl that does yoga

DominoDub

The backlash in a Pitchfork up their own ass style !:D


http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/39752/Damien_Rice_9

Hey, guys, you know what?

Damien Rice is pretty much the vanguard of the avant-garde: a Bladerunner-snazzy digital billboard beckoning toward a brave, new, post-emotional future. Sure, the canny Irish artiste may have fooled a lot of people into thinking his ostensible watered-down coffeehouse troubadour shtick was boring enough to win a Mercury Prize, but a few of us know better. Maybe you're saying I'm full of ****: maybe you can't actually hear the new sound of the 21st century because you're still so busy half-listening to the first 30 seconds of the latest "leaked" indie album, breathlessly registering your online approval in comment boxes between ritual visits to **********.

Look, you've heard of the non-denial denial, right? "I have no recollection of that." OK, good, 'cause more recently, the non-apology apology has been sweeping the globe: "I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong." Don't bogart that Vicodin, Mr. Limbaugh. And now Rice, a confessional singer/songwriter, alone in the whole world except for fellow avant-gardist and would-be author O.J. Simpson, has pioneered the next communications vogue: The non-confession confession. Simpson's book, If I Did It, has been scuttled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. just days before its expected street date; Rice's sophomore album, 9, is already out and changes everything.

The confessional singer/songwriter's main charge has always been, O tautology of tautologies, to confess. His tales of woe may be tragically real (Elliott Smith) or borne out of a self-mythologized folkie past (early Bob Dylan), but the broken-heart-on-bloodied-sleeve breed of performer exists to make you feel his pain, babe. Still, no professional fink has ever been so explicit as to begin a record with a song called "9 Crimes"-- nor ever kept so fuzzy about what those crimes actually are. Yes, on 9, Rice makes a lot of mellow noise about being a liar, a cheat, and an all-around gloomy Gus, but his disclosures are usually too trite, his offenses too vague, ever to really ring true, and the songs' assembly-line construction subverts any emotional impact. It's as if Rice has conjured up every cliché from the genre's past, only to immolate them all in a tepid MOR bonfire. Far ****ing out.

A somber duet with band member Lisa Hannigan, "9 Crimes" doesn't just conveniently explain the album's title. It also introduces Rice's bland template: First, intone a few faded metaphors so unrelentingly bleak they must be sincere; rotate through a few ghostly arpeggios, either on piano or acoustic guitar (every few songs, actually strum!); build from faltering Jeff Buckley whispers to cathartic Jeff Buckley caterwauls; let the strings swell, and...Congratulations, you're on satellite radio. Rice murmurs, "It's a small crime, and I got no excuse," then adds something about a loaded gun. First time I heard this was in a movie theater before Borat. Trivia: Russell Crowe's pre-stardom nom de rock was, oh man, Russ Le Roq!

No bears in ice cream vans here. Rice mostly keeps this Lexus LS 400 in cruise control. Oh, occasionally he'll wax meta-- from "You asked me to write you a pleasant song" to "What's the point of this song?" in just two tracks-- and sometimes he gets deep: "Nothing is lost/ It is just frozen in frost." Mostly, though, he's unremittingly melancholy, making sure never to use the word "end" when "die" will do. "9 Crimes" has already been tapped for Grey's Anatomy, but the closest Rice comes to a future sleeper hit is the laid-back "Dogs", with an agrammatical, non-rhyming chorus about "the girl that does yoga/ when we come over" and an overall sense of Dave Matthewsy lasciviousness. Whenever Rice risks truly touching us emotionally-- say, when he's asking a former lover, "Do you brush your teeth before you kiss?" on "Accidental Babies"-- he undercuts himself with go-nowhere melodies and formulaic arrangements.

There are a few times throughout 9 when Rice boldly ignores the fact that his chain-ready inoffensiveness is a major reason for his appeal (this is called an Elizabeth Berkley). "I am lately horny," Rice bellows on the meandering "Elephant" after hissing like Thom Yorke at the end of an old "Creep" acoustic version. And that's only the start. With usual soft/loud dynamic, "Rootless Tree" drifts from middle-aged guitar harmonics (a dozing Keller Williams?) to adolescent alterna-angst: "**** you, **** you, **** you," goes the lazy chorus, a funhouse-mirror obliteration of all that was affecting in Ani DiFranco's confessional singer/songwriter standard, "Untouchable Face". Rice assaults his coffeehouse milieu aurally, as well as lyrically: With its "my god!" squeals and sadistic, quasi-arty distortion, "Me, My Yoke, and I" is a break from the Rice mold-- and helped me finally identify with The Passion of the Christ. Forgive him, dudes, for he know not what he do.

Now, OK, you're saying, but didn't Rice actually do all this before on O, the award-winning 2002 debut that went platinum in Ireland and has soundtracked stateside TV dramas ever since? Not quite. Sure, O was a study in earnestness-by-numbers so unimaginative it could've been self-parody, but it did offer a few resolutely tuneful moments: ubiquitous first single "The Blower's Daughter", bedroom cello ember "Volcano", or the keening but catchy "Cannonball" and its adult-alternative remix. Like the Juice's If I Did It, Rice's 9 renders past transgressions merely hypothetical. This album promises nine crimes, but at 10 tracks, it's actually a bargain. Hints, allegations, and things left unsaid.

-Marc Hogan, November 22, 2006

Steve_o

Th first time i listened to it, i found myself almost loosing interest after the 3rd or 4th song but now having listened to it a good 10 times i love it, probably not as infectious as O was but still a very good album!