Review: Damien Rice – 9

Damien Rice

9
(Warner Bros)

When Damien Rice emerged in 2004 with O, his stellar collection of intelligent nuanced folk and adult contemporary, he was part of they same fresh breeze that included Josh Ritter, Rufus Wainwright and the late Nick Drake – music for adults that didn’t suck, but rather, was incredible. Rice returns to form with the somber 9, coming on with a whisper and ending with a tornado on “9 Crimes.” The songs are more sentimental, with “Rootless Tree” pitting his subtle voice against a windswept brush of drums and piano before erupting into a glorious rush of expletives and strings. Unfortunately, this saccharine-heavy record falls into soundtrack territory with a number of songs, albeit excellent, all mining the same melancholy “I got it at Starbucks” trap his previous album transcended. Still though, if you need an album to soundtrack a lazy Saturday, lounging on your decorator couch, sipping herbal tea and not really reading The New Yorker, this is your record.