Damien Rice's sophomore album marks the return of the Irishman whose heartbroken, sometimes expletive-peppered songs come through a voice that's both wrenchingly articulate and intimate.
9 is the belated follow-up to 2003's sleeper hit, O, where Rice introduced his beautiful, stripped-down style accompanied by cello, piano and guitar, proving he's hardly a one-instrument man à la John Mayer or Jamie Cullum types. Instead, he's first and foremost a storyteller. Yet, halfway through the album I began to wonder if, after stripping away those delectable tender-angry vocals, Rice would ever get out of his vicious cycle of self-absorbed introspection. Or if we will ever stop hearing about emotionally poisonous loves, right down to the bad sex.
On first listen, Rice hasn't changed radically in style or tone. The raw, angel-voiced Lisa Hannigan, Rice's female vocalist partner-in-crime, is still present on several songs on the album. The first single, "9 Crimes," features the pair's ongoing dialogue; intertwining vocals setting up more "I cheated" confessions while the stark piano tune contrasts slyly with its violent imagery -- "Give my gun away when it's loaded ... / Is that alright with you?" It splits to the characteristic swelling cello, though "Crimes" lyrically lacks Rice's usual angsty convolution. I think that's a good thing.
To similar effect, the gentle piano in "Accidental Babies" contrasts with the shock-funny jealousy tale, where Rice probes (bad sexual pun intended) an ex about bedroom action with her new lover.
The enchanting, lullaby-like "The Animals Were Gone" is equally abstruse. The lush interlude of violin and cello is almost a little too Christmas-saccharine, though Rice's biting humor slides back in to remind us that he is anything but -- "We'll call it Christmas / when the adverts begin." It's especially moving because it comes in line with the spooky, funeral-like operatic ending. But there are signs that Rice is not solely about despair or resignation; he sings of returning to a lover with giddy fairy tale allusions: "I know that I love you / so please throw down your hair."
"Gray Room" is, along the same lines, a captivating and unusually optimistic ballad, where Rice portrays love as his saving grace rather than something that tears him to pieces in the usual fashion, saying, "I've still got me to keep you warm."
Rice's louder, more flamboyant side is captured in "Me, My Yoke" and "Rootless Tree" -- both are reminiscent of but do not surpass O's angry-lust-rock-anthem "Volcano" -- but it is in the deceptively sunny "Dogs" that he steps away from his trademark melancholy. At first, he disquietingly channels easy-listening Jack Johnson. But the song is surprisingly another charming mock-fairy tale about a girl who has "a wolf to keep her warm," in another sly dig at the New Man, this time without the bleeding-heart exposition. The upbeat "Coconut Skins" wonderfully combines its light tune with lyrics packing both whimsy and cynicism -- "You can sit on chimneys / and put some fire up your ass."
It's necessary to drop the misconception that Rice is an early James Blunt. Few could do a better job of musically capturing the terrible-yet-wonderful world of romantic paradox. Amidst black humor, bewitching melodies and bitter diatribes, Rice has succeeded in descending somewhat from his ivory tower of angst -- and to lovely and exceptional effect.
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