Damien Rice: O | Music | The Guardian


Damien Rice's debut album, O, is a collection of acoustic folk songs that, despite following a familiar formula, stands out due to Rice's unique personality and songwriting talent.
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High on the list of Things Music Needs No More Of, just below chill-out compilations and anything endorsed by Simon Cowell, lurk folky singer-songwriters. On the surface, this self-produced debut by Dublin's Damien Rice is standard stuff - acoustic lamentations, swirling string arrangements - but, like Kathryn Williams, Rice's personality and deft songwriting hoist him above the mass of bedsit mumblers. Cold Water's wracked vocal overeggs the tortured troubadour pudding, but at its best, O is gorgeous and understated, never too introverted to include a lovely melody. The songs' intimacy is heightened by the flat production. Canonball and Amie perfectly fix a drowsy, end-of-the-season melancholy. Whatever the actual circumstances, O sounds as if it was recorded in the sweltering early hours at the end of summer.

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