D ’O’h review

[#Ian#]

Some of you may remember me saying that I submitted an review of O to a site. Well it never went up and I asked about it, the guy running the site told me he never got it because it may have been flagged as spam and advised me to re-submit it and he would take a look at it which I did. In the meantime one of the sites own regular writers was reviewing it. It went up today and is quite good so I'll include the link here.

I'm not insinuating anything, what Matt wrote bears no similarity to what I wrote its entirely coincidental and hopefully at some point I'll get some stuff up with them. Just probably not my 1300 words on O. Which I'll post here sometime next week because after all the effort I put into it I'd like someone to read it.

[Patricia]

Awwww, thats just unlucky! [img]smileys/smiley18.gif[/img]

[julia]

Geez and on your birthday you find this out [img]smileys/smiley11.gif[/img] Post it here we would like to read it please [img]smileys/smiley17.gif[/img]

[Angela]

Arg. That's a bummer. I have a feeling more and more regular mail gets stuck in the spam basket these days.

Hey...we got almost 1,500 members here! So, post it here in our "Igloo Ggazette" [img]smileys/smiley14.gif[/img]

[#Ian#]

Right, the good news is that I sent my review to the reviewer as feedback. He also does a column on the site and he said he was going to post an edited version of it in his next column and ask what readers think. If the feedback is positive enough they might take me on a trial basis. But I'll post it in full here.

Sample/application review - Damien Rice '0'


Its not the typical rock n’ roll success story but it certainly started out that way.

Boy forms band with schoolmates, band practices, band gets gigs, band gets talked up by people in the know as the “next big thing”, band get signed to major label, band get ready to record debut album.

Its all fine so far but here is where the wheels start to come off.

Label starts to interfere with creative direction of the band, boy gets pissed off, boy walks out in the middle of recording sessions, boy leaves home country and busks around Europe for a couple of years, boy comes home and decides that music is still what he wants to do in life, boy borrows money to buy a home studio from Bjork producing second cousin.

Boy records album, boy releases album on his own label, album hugely praised, album eventually goes triple platinum in home country. gold in the UK and to sells over 167,000 copies in the US, album win shortlist music prize, boy and his US label decide to re-issue album on the back of this.

I review album while trying to get a gig writing for 411mania.com.

The above is the abridged story of Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice and his debut album “O”.

It’s very easy to read the above story and think to yourself, “What a prick, he had everything he ever wanted and walked away from it”, but everything about this album screams that its creator is someone that is fiercely independent, cares deeply about everything that he does and wants it to be perfect. Even down to the album’s packaging.

Most albums covers are nothing special, a familiar jewel case that is guaranteed to crack anytime that you handle it with anything besides cashmere oven mitts, occasionally they might be fold-out cardboard but that’s it. Only Radiohead have really done anything with the medium of late. O is different. It comes in a linen bound hard backed book that contains handwritten notes and artwork painted by Rice and members of his band. Merely opening the album gives you the impression that you might be dealing with something a little bit different from the norm.

But the presentation would be worthless if it accompanied a disc that sounded awful. As it stands it serves to slightly enhance a remarkable piece of work.

Getting back to my point about the amount of thought that Rice has put into every aspect of the album, although the songs are about different people and relationships; and were written in a different chronological order the album’s track ordering gives the impression that it is all about the one relationship and plots the path of initial infatuation, the actual relationship itself and its painful conclusion and aftermath. Or maybe its just a selection of songs that Rice thought sounded nice in that order. Either way, it works.

The album opens with “Delicate”, a song set against a gentle acoustic refrain examining what the prospect of new love can do to a man; capturing the excitement of starting something new whilst still questioning whether or not the protagonist deserves to be with this person.

The next 2 songs, “Volcano” and one of the highlights of the album “The Blowers Daughter” deals with the relationship itself. “Volcano” opens with a cello introduction by Vyvienne Long also contains the first piece of lead vocals from Lisa Hannigan who we’ll get to later. “The Blowers Daughter“ features a chorus which learns a lessen from when Bob Dylan put aside all verse, all poetry; and laid it all on the table by just saying “I want you”. Rice, against a series of soft descending chords, simply tells the object of his desire “I can’t take my eyes off of you”.

3 songs in and the relationship is done, most of what follows is the aftermath and the pain. “Cannonball” and “Older Chests” find Rice missing his love and pleading for time to lick his wounds.

Most of the songs on the album were produced by Rice himself on a portable studio and the album does have a certain homemade feel to it. The next song “Amie” was produced by the aforementioned second cousin David Arnold who is probably best known for his work Bjork’s albums. It certainly has a more polished sound compared to the rest of the album but set against the “I made this” lo-fi vibe of everything else it tends to stick out.

“Cheers Darlin’” finds a drunken Rice bitterly and venomously rebuking the girl because she has moved on and found someone new. Interestingly the actual story behind the song is that Rice tried to char up a girl in a bar, plied her with drink (missing his last bus home in the process) only to have the girl tell him that she had to go because she was late for a meeting with her boyfriend. Rice eventually got home, still drunk and wrote this song, you can hear him fumbling around in the kitchen in the background, knocking off of things.

“Cold Water” borrows very heavily in terms of structure from The Smith’s “I know its over” and John Cale’s piano arrangement for Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” which is probably best known as performed by the late Jeff Buckley who adapted it for guitar. Rice is at this point so lost in his misery that he turns to God for help to guide him out of his pain. The song features backward masked vocals and possibly the first use of Gregorian chanting in a contemporary album. The album up to this point had musically been quite straightforward. The arrangements for the songs mainly consist of Rice singing accompanied by his acoustic guitar, bass, drums, cello and with backing vocals provided by Lisa Hannigan who also occasionally gives voice to the woman in the relationship and the importance of her contribution to the album cannot be overstated. The possessor of a truly beautiful voice, her presence often makes a good song great.

“I remember” starts off with a change of pace. Up till now its mainly been Rice singing about his infatuation, his love, his pain. Here Hannigan, again voicing the woman, over some gentle picked guitar explains what she saw in Rice in the first place. Rice responds angrily, he doesn’t want to listen, he doesn’t want to know. The contrast between the quiet of the female vocals here and the male response is staggering. Imagine how rocking you think you can make the cello and the acoustic guitar sound. Then double it. That’s about half as angry as the music when Rice is singing this song sounds.

The album closes with “Eskimo” and finds a more resigned Rice realising that its over and seeking comfort from his friends. The song features opera singer Doreen Curran singing in Finnish. The album ends with a calm Rice saying that he “looks … [to his] … eskimo friend, when I’m down”.

But wait, there’s a postscript here. The bonus tracks.

“Prague” is about the jealously Rice still feels for his ex and her new man and not being able to deal with it.

The real, last words on the album are left to the woman that has caused Rice such grief, as ever voiced by Lisa Hannigan. On “Silent Night” she sings her own lyrics to the popular Christmas carol and explains that although Rice has constantly berated her and abused her for the pain that she has caused him he gave no thought to the fact that he also caused her tremendous pain and she too has been hurt by the whole situation and that she also deserves some “heavenly peace”.

The 411:

Rice has often been talked up as “the new David Gray”. I think such comparisons are unfair. Rice is infinitely more talented than Gray is. His songs are both more musically interesting (I will die of shock if I ever hear a David Gray song featured Gregorian chanting) and emotionally deeper than anything Gray could stretch to.

This album is probably my second favourite debut of all time. It’s a concept album without the prog rock pretensions yet the songs are strong enough to stand up to examination on their own. Words probably can’t describe how much I adore the album, but I’ve used more than 1300 of them to try to. Unfortunately a mark on a scale of 0-10 will have to do it.

So lets say …

8.8

Edited by: #Ian#

[Patricia]

Very good essay Ian! [img]smileys/smiley4.gif[/img]

[#Ian#]

Thanks Patricia, any other comments/thoughts/criticisms welcome (NO spelling or grammar corrections though you bunch of pedents.)

[Patricia]

[img]smileys/smiley3.gif[/img]

[Angela]

It's very good, Ian.

Two things: in my opinion, I would throw out everything before "everything about this album screams that its creator is someone that is fiercely independent". Your writing is very vivid and detailed, the introduction just piles up cliches and sounds like "bla, bla, bla, let me get this out of the way" compared the rest of your writing.

Just my opinion, of course. [img]smileys/smiley17.gif[/img] If you rate it 8.9 after saying how much you adore it, I want to know why it's not a 10. Always.

[#Ian#]

Why didn't I give it 10? Because its not ok computer or blonde on blonde.If its my second favourite debut (after Grace FYI) then I can't give it 10 either.

[Angela]

Yeah, but your readers don't know your reference points. (Maybe the mag has one, but I don't know who you wrote the article for.) I always think, though it's rarely done, it would be constructive to be specific about what makes it not a 10 - if you have any concrete criticism, that is.

[#Ian#]

Well not really, I like everything on the record, its all good, but having everything on the album being good isn't enough to make it a ten, even if there are no minus points the plus points don't add up to 10. But I take your point.

I mean really don't care for Corpus Christi Carol that much but the other parts of Grace make it an album that I would rate in the 9's, similarily there are times when I really hate let down but the rest of the album more then makes OK Computer a 10 for me.

You're probably right about the reference points, I did mention Jeff and the Smiths when talking about Cold Water though, but that was more in reference to the structure of the song moreso than the sound. I suppose its hard for me to consider that though initially, I'll listen to anything and could easily write about four tet next. I just like music and am gnerally unconcerned about genres, good music is good music wheter its electronica or alt country. But I should have put in a few "this sounds a bit like this and if you like this then maybe you'll like this" parts.

I really appreciate the feedback by the way.

By the way does anyone agree/disagree with my idea that the album as arranged tells a story?

[#Ian#]

Originally Posted by #Ian#

I suppose its hard for me to consider that though initially, I'll listen to anything and could easily write about four tet next. I just like music and am gnerally unconcerned about genres, good music is good music wheter its electronica or alt country.

I just read that passage back. I honestly didn't mean to sound THAT pompous. Sorry.

[Si_B]

Good review, an interesting reading of the album. I had never really thought of it as a story before but the way you have described it makes sense. Woteva way you look at this album it is still quality!

[marina]

well done Ian [img]smileys/smiley32.gif[/img]

[tj]

What can I say?


The introduction was a bit boring. The style was good, how and ever, it dragged on for too long.


I like your style. Just try to edit the intros down a bit.


Good luck and well done!

[mattbeswick]

Good review - only point is that you should maybe explain why you didn't give it any higher than the 8.8

[standonlytofall]

Ian,

very impresssive review, that's the way i've always looked at the album, viewing each song as a piece of the bigger picture, seeing it all as him dealing with a relationship. you wrote exactly what i've always thought. nice job

[Donsie B!]

Better look nxt time!!