Damien Rice
9

DAMIEN RICE - 9
elegy in D minor

A new folk singer-songwriter album is certainly not a novelty in the independent music scene of recent years. It could be just another acoustic album. But that's not the case when it's Damien Rice.

A full four years after the masterpiece "O", "9" is released these days (visually a bit like "O" but with an extra flourish). Many fans await the new work of the Irish singer-songwriter as if it's a revelation... and I don't want to disappoint them. Perhaps there are no gems like "Delicate", "The Blower's Daughter" or "Eskimo", yet there are some tracks - not all, that would be a miracle - that don't make you miss them. To begin with, the opening track "9 Crimes": a classical piano, the voice of Lisa Hannigan, counterpoints of voice and violin, infinite purity aiming higher than ever. Then the delicacy of the second track "Animals Were Gone", with its final procession of ghosts, and the whispered clarity of "Elephant", which around 4:20 bursts into a shouted and sincere orchestral affliction driven by the snare drum.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, from the fourth track, the originality of the songwriting declines a bit: "Rootless Tree" slightly yields to the youthful nature of the lyrics, while "Dogs" and "Coconut Skins" are very honest arpeggiated or rhythmic country craftsmanship. "Me, My Yoke, And I" is perhaps a failed attempt to experiment with a slightly noise-infused blues: it's the slip of the album, over time it becomes monotonous if not annoying. With "Grey Room" the artistic tone rises again, in the mild "Accidental Babies" we rediscover the typical dreamy atmospheres, and "Sleep Don't Weep" closes this second studio effort in a gloomy and nostalgic way, just below the level of the first, still of the highest quality when compared with dozens of folk albums in recent years.

Probably after listening, one might wonder if the artist has been overrated, but only future albums will tell us this: in the meantime, as we set the question aside for another four years, let's enjoy this "9".

from "Elephant"
"When you think you're safe
You fall upon your knees
But you're living in your picture
you still forget to breathe,
and she may rise if I sing you down
And she may drive me into the ground"