Damien Rice: “9 Crimes”
Damien Rice is back and, unlike Derek, I’ve only been through one Damien Rice phase, and it began when I first heard his stunning debut, O, and will likely continue until eternity. His new single, “9 Crimes”, is slated for official release on November 20, but can be purchased from iTunes without the (phenomenal) b-side as a pre-release this very moment. The song is a fairly straightforward piano ballad, and though the combination of his voice with the angelic Lisa Hannigan definitely elevates the track above most of your run-of-the-mill piano ballads, I fear my expectations for his sophomore album may be set entirely too high by my adoration for O. The majority of Rice’s debut is stronger than the lead single for 9 (out Nov. 6th in the UK and the 14th in the US), which does not bode well in my book. To be fair, “9 Crimes” is a great song, but as far as I’m concerned the addition of a crescendo with a minute left does little to make a song more interesting. Rice definitely exhibited a penchant for the song-closing crescendo on his debut, but at least he’d mix up the instrumentation for those, adding strings and layering vocals to make it more interesting. On “9 Crimes”, the only change is in volume, which doesn’t go much farther than creating a contrived sense of urgency. It’s important to stress that an average Damien Rice song is better than at least 99% of releases this year, and I realize I hold Rice to an unimaginably high standard, but the reality is that this song is just that: an average Damien Rice track.
The single release is hardly a bust, however, for the inclusion of what is almost definitely Damien Rice’s best b-side ever, “Rat Within The Grain”. I have historically been underwhelmed by Rice’s b-sides, and garnered similar feelings for his more upbeat material. “Rat Within The Grain” is an immediate exception to both of those counts. The song features an instantly accessible vocal melody and a simple strummed guitar in the background, and though the technique is in nothing new, Rice takes it to a level not seen since a certain Green Day tune innocently snuck its way in to graduation slideshows around the country. A rare occurrence, in the case of the “9 Crimes” single the b-side definitely outshines the main event. I’m looking forward to finding out which of the two entirely different tracks is more indicative of the sound on 9, which after such an unbearably long wait is only a month away from seeing the light of day.
MP3s:
“9 Crimes” - Damien Rice
“The Rat Within The Grain” - Damien Rice ((highly recommended))
Derek also uncovered a pretty interesting exclusive for you all, so I’ll let him take it from here.
Holla at yr boy (then please forgive him for leading in with such a preposterous salutation). I’ve got a pretty ridiculous cover for you below (y’know, the kind that seems to exist solely for the purpose of making the Hype Machine implode) - Captain Somber himself, Damien Rice, covering Pink’s “Get The Party Started”. Seriously. Taken from an Irish pop covers compilation, released in 2003 and titled Even Better Than The Real Thing Vol. 1, the track should really be credited to Hannigan, as it’s primarily her voice here with Rice chipping in with back-up vox from time to time, but it’s interesting to hear anything with the word “party” in it with Rice’s name attached to it, let alone a cover of Pink.
Bonus MP3: “Get The Party Started” - Damien Rice & Lisa Hannigan [exclusive]