Damien Rice

[sdldawn]

Anyone dig this guy?

What an impressive album for a debut.. sounds aged like a fine wine.. the context and lyrics are pretty stunning.. and I think he's an amazing singer.

Its a tad bit on a the meloncholy side.. very sad and sorrowful music.. but beautiful none the less...

;-)

[BigRed82]

Can't say I liked it. I listened to a few of the clips from amazon.com and it was really sad and like you said, melancholy. If I still liked alot of R&B I may have enjoyed it more but I think I'm passed that phase and I'm not really into R&B anymore like I used to be when I was in high school... My musical tastes have changed so much. It's weird because I still enjoy listening to all of my P.M. Dawn albums and yet after I listen to one I throw something like Billy Talent or The Used, Third Eye Blind, Modest Mouse, or Keane in afterwards.

I remember someone a long time ago mentioned a guy named Kenny Lattimore and I still have that album and listen to it on occasion, probably the last R&B album I ever bought.

[sdldawn]

Originally posted by BigRed82@Dec 15 2004, 09:59 PM
Can't say I liked it. I listened to a few of the clips from amazon.com and it was really sad and like you said, melancholy. If I still liked alot of R&B I may have enjoyed it more but I think I'm passed that phase and I'm not really into R&B anymore like I used to be when I was in high school... My musical tastes have changed so much. It's weird because I still enjoy listening to all of my P.M. Dawn albums and yet after I listen to one I throw something like Billy Talent or The Used, Third Eye Blind, Modest Mouse, or Keane in afterwards.

I remember someone a long time ago mentioned a guy named Kenny Lattimore and I still have that album and listen to it on occasion, probably the last R&B album I ever bought.

I feel ya man.. but where does r&b co-exist with this type of acoustic folk type music?


anywho


It took me about a year to appreciate this album.. yes, its main subject and mood is meloncholy


his writing skills exceeds the majority in his field though...currently


I expect great things from him in the future..

this was a definant 5 star album.

[sdldawn]

Here is an Allmusic review

4 and 1/2 stars out of five.


Magnificently packaged in a CD-sized hardcover book filled with personal artwork, lyrics, and photos, Damien Rice's debut full-length, O, is nothing less than a work of genius, a perfect cross between Ryan Adams and David Gray and a true contender for one of the best albums of 2003. This Irish singer/songwriter works with impassioned folk songs that move from stripped-down to grandly orchestrated in a heartbeat. The production is reminiscent of Songs of Leonard Cohen — simple guitars, vocals, and then those swelling strings, all of which sound like they were recorded right in the same room. Rice is master of what critic/ranter Richard Meltzer called "the unknown tongue" — basically the musical equivalent of the "punctum" in photos, it's that thing that grabs a hold of you, the detail that makes it happen. For example, on "Delicate" the strings lift the spare folk song to the heavens at just the moment that makes the song soar — Meltzer might call it the "folk tongue" or maybe even the "epic tongue." The magnificent, melancholy, optimistic, longing, almost magical "The Blower's Daughter" comes in immediately as the previous song, "Volcano," ends — same thing with the song that follows — which gives the album a broad, operatic quality. The gentle "Cannonball," the bright strumming and surreal feedback on "Amie," the distant piano and oceanic harmonies (not to mention drowning, backwards vocals) on the duet, Cold Water" — the entire record makes the empty highway less lonely, the sunshine a little warmer, and life a little more poetic. Then there's the actual opera singer doing backup vocal duties on "Eskimo" — a song of redemption that is Syd Barrett, is Skip Spence, is Grandaddy and is Mercury Rev and everything that implies. What a metaphor for Rice's entire hopelessly beautiful record — one long angelic hymn for an insane world with the intimacy of a friend playing guitar in your living room and the grandeur of Sigur Rós.

[sdldawn]

An Amazon review..

Amazon.com
Irish troubadour Damien Rice doesn't so much reinvent the folk genre on this lush, impossibly mature debut album as push its boundaries in several compelling musical directions at once--all the more remarkable considering the album was largely self-produced and home-recorded. His songs revolve around familiar, bittersweet concerns of life, love and their attendant frustrations, but delivered with conspiratorial intimacy on melodic wings that (like on the graceful "Cannonball") Rice seems almost embarrassed to share. If there's anything like a template here, it's "The Blower's Daughter," the song that first attracted the interest/stewardship of film composer David Arnold (whose guest production provides "Amie" with expansive cinematic elegance) and became a massive Irish hit. His plaintive vocal, embroidered by the mournful solo cello of Vyvienne Long, is suddenly brightened by an instrumental flourish and Lisa Hannigan's vocals--before just as quickly wafting on the breeze. With touches that range from "Day in the Life"-styled string collages to the dizzy, exhilarating neo-operatic excesses of the 16-minute "Eskimo," Rice's musical palate here is as adventurous as his songs are grounded in emotional intimacy. --Jerry McCulley

Album Description
Damien Rice's intriguing brand of stylishly, un-styled dirty folk music has made him one of the standout artists of 2003. O was first released in Ireland, where it quickly broke the top ten, and achieved triple-platinum status. Slim hard-back digipak. Vector. 2003.

[LumtheMad]

Much like Iron & Wine this guy is on the Lum "Oh i'll get this next shopping trip" Plan. It's an awful plan to be on. I've heard bits and pieces of the album and to my ears he's a better Nick Drake.

I spose i'll have to get it soon......maybe next time in fact!!! (and the terrible cycle continues....)

[BigRed82]

Yeah I read those amazon.com interviews and some reviews from other people. No doubt he's talented.... no dispute there. Maybe just too melancholy for me now. I'm not saying this is true specifically for you or anyone else, but this is the way I tend to attach to music is when I'm in a melancholy mood (which lasts for weeks or months) then I tend to listen to new sad, slow, dark and brooding music. Maybe it took you a year before you could relate and/or feel what he was saying. I'm sure it's great winter music.

[Chukwuka]

I listen'd to him yesterday... After reading this post/topic....

My name is Damien also!!

[spidey]

Never heard of him. Is he any good?

[sdldawn]

Originally posted by spidey@Dec 17 2004, 09:11 AM
Never heard of him. Is he any good?

i'd go listen to a few tracks at amazon.com...

should be a few samples availible thizere...

[dreamrib]

After seeing the first commerical for the movie Closer I had to find his song The Blewer's daughter. My friends tell me the song got butchered more in the movie,but i dunno.

I downloaded it. I like it, but you can definatly tell he is the Folk crossover, sort of when Sarah McLachlan came out.