Damien Rice new album '9' full preview legal

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!