This is an album/artist that I was introduced to via the TV show, Live at Abbey Road. In season one, Damien Rice performed a few tracks from this, his second album. Rice was, as I remember it, the "it singer-songwriter" when his first album, O, was released, although to be fair to this review, I neither have it or am familiar with it.
My inital reaction to this album on this listen was that it's almost too sparce in places. Almost like a grunge-styled folk album, there are really, really quiet parts followed by really, almost explosive loud parts. The comparisons to other folk artists like Ray LaMontagne and Nick Drake are obvious, but someone I think they do it better... or, at least more consistantly.
I think that was really my issue with the album: it seemed to lack some sort of flow for me. The changes in LOUD and soft were, at times, too dramatic for me. There are certainly some solid singles/tracks on the disc, but as a whole it doesn't seem to work.
Listening again, I now realize how infrequently the female vocalist, Lisa Hannigan, is featured. On the Abbey Road show, she sung on each of the three tracks they performed, but (on this album, at least) she's only used a handful of times. It might well have been her presence, or the interaction between the two voices, that really made the songs stand-out for me initially. That said, in looking up Lisa's name for this post, I realize that she's gone on to do some solo work; her most recent album was even nominated for a Mercury Prize.
So, it's not a great album in the folk-rock, singer-songwriter genre in my mind, but there are some choice cuts here.
| Recommended track(s): | 9 Crimes, Dogs, Grey Room |
| Worth another listen? | ~Maybe |
| Overall rating: | Two-and-a-Half Stars |
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