:: Damien Rice - 9

Damien Rice

Damien Rice first captured the world audience as the voice of the film Closer, his mesmerising vocal performance on that soundtrack delivering the character the film lacked. 9 is widely hailed as his bitter break up album. Par for the course for the broken hearted, this is a collection of sparse songs filled with pain, anger and occasional bad language. Emotion is the strongest note here - piano, cello and violin interludes softening the blows. The lyrics are the words of a man desperate to hang on, rather than move on. Wine glasses clink in the background of ‘Sleep Don’t Weep’, and while his musical moping is sublime, let’s hope Rice meets a nice lady or fella sometime soon so we can experience a broader slice of his turbulent emotional universe.