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Overall, Rice has produced a release which equals and perhaps even surpasses his debut, a album that takes you through emotional highs and lows you are unlikely to hear anywhere else this winter.
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There are not as many revelations as on Rice's acclaimed 2002 debut, "O," but it still can be sonically thrilling.
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Quite addictive.
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Even when he tips the sensitivity scales too much... Rice’s innate, anti-lite-FM intensity saves him.
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UncutA delicate and sometimes bleak record. [Dec 2006, p.123]
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Q Magazine9 may be quiet, but it is never easy listening. [Dec 2006, p.125]
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MojoRice doesn't dismiss outright the folky troubadour charm that distinguished O, but here it's a springboard for jealousy, sex, misery. [Dec 2006, p.104]
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SpinRice seeks 24/7 momentousness here. [Jan 2007, p.92]
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An album to which listening compares to watching The Break-up or The Last Kiss.
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Rice stands apart from the pack because of the genuine beauty and eccentricity of his tunes.
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He rocks more often and more bombastically, but he still writes few song-songs of the kind that anyone with a guitar could stand on stage and interpret. This music needs Rice's rangy voice and desperate theatricality to work.
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He avoids being too folksy or slipping into an acoustic coma by layering percussion, electric guitars, and strings when needed. By the end, you’ll feel you’ve been through the same wringer.
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There are still enough swelling, string-laden climaxes, crisscrossing vocal lines, and cascading symphonies of voices to keep fans of O happy, but the album is significantly less unified.
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9 is by no means a failure, or even bad, but it dulls in comparison to what Rice can really produce, which makes it disappointing overall.
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Under The RadarWhile O floated along pretty much at one consistently delicate pace, 9 finds Rice exploring a wider range of musical expression. [#16, p.97]
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Not quite as endearing as his raw and seductive 2002 debut.
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BillboardIt is simply miserable, heavy, repetitive and cathartic. [18 Nov 2006]
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It's good enough to impress fans of David Gray and Coldplay.
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The tortured melancholy bit -- part of it, anyway -- takes a back seat on the follow-up to this Irish bard's well-loved 2003 debut.
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As it was on 2003's O, Damien Rice's songs are so naked emotionally that even listening is akin to eavesdropping on a bad breakup.
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Paste MagazineWhile not as panoramic or varied as its predecessor, 9 is marked by a similar mix of poised control and impulsive gestures backed by dramatically arranged, lyrical instrumentation. [Dec 2006, p.92]
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"9" picks up where the ubiquitous and two-million selling "O" left off. Hoarse howling to acoustic guitar strumming; folksy plucking to bleeding heart mutterings; Radiohead-a-like moments pull of portentous, look-at-me pauses and full band crescendos.
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He quivers, moans and pleads in obsessive contemplation of the darling departed in a self-dramatising simulation of catharsis that wrings from his performances an ocean of emotion when a drop of understated restraint would prove more telling.
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The New York Times"9"... has a confused feel: he simultaneously glosses up the production, tries too hard to seem edgy, then compares women to sandy shores and the morning sun like an adult-contemporary sap. [20 Nov 2006]
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New Musical Express (NME)He's terribly earnest. [4 Nov 2006, p.35]
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Not all of 9 is obnoxious, though. Much of it is merely boring; the unmemorable tunes failing to elevate beyond everyday, coffee house, bland competency.
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The biggest problem might be Rice’s vocal technique. On O, he had a tendency to endearingly strain for notes he couldn’t reach. Now, it sounds like he’s purposefully written songs to allow him to overextend his thin voice.
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Whenever Rice risks truly touching us emotionally-- say, when he's asking a former lover, "Do you brush your teeth before you kiss?" on "Accidental Babies"-- he undercuts himself with go-nowhere melodies and formulaic arrangements.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 46 out of 53
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Mixed: 4 out of 53
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Negative: 3 out of 53
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Sep 2, 2014
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CarlyH.Jan 11, 2009Pitchfork, i read your review, it was RETARDED. You have no REAL reasons behind hating this album. I hate you, pitchfork.
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AdamP.Jan 1, 2009