SoundSalvationArmy

Man Damien Rice fucked up. The man won the Mercury Prize for his first album (which is totally bullshit given the competition that year, but whatever), which means he was doing something right one way or the other. But he totally dropped the ball trying to match the feat that was his first record.

O was an even-keeled, somber acoustic/folk/singer-songwriter album that had a handful of incredibly thrilling songs; genuinely moving pieces, even if they WERE littered with more than their fair share of lyrical abortions (one of the later songs on O repeats the phrase, “Can you hear me now?” at least two dozen times…not to mention another song that actually uses the phrase, “Life taught me to die”). Despite sometimes-spotty lyricism, roughly half of the album was nothing but high points, and I was excited for his follow-up.

As it turns out there was a reason it took him seven years to make the first one: three years between the two was only enough time to turn out half the number of good songs as there were on the first disc. Truthfully, that’s overstating things. He really only ended up with two songs from the sessions for 9 that were any good, and one of them wasn’t even on the album proper.

“Rootless Tree” takes the dizzying highs of the first record and adds genuine rock and roll guitar to the mix, along with excessive cursing; two things that will get you top marks with the Sound Salvation Army. The other is a b-side from the sessions that was offered up as a bonus track when some poor sap paid for the whole album on iTunes. It’s not even that spectacular, but put up against the rest of that mess of an album, you allow yourself to pretend a little.

In conclusion, thanks Damien, but no thanks. Make sure you take a good long time coming up with album number three, please.

Damien Rice has music for you to buy here:
iTunes: at the end of this lil’ rainbow
Web store: Including a bizarre array of cd singles.

Pat entries acoustic, Damien Rice, epic failure, folk, sophomore slump