Damien Rice - My Favourite Faded Fantasy
My Favourite Faded Fantasy
Damien Rice
Tiger Rating: 9.0 / 10
Singer / Songwriter
Ireland's perpetual poet of attractive gloom is back for what is surprisingly only his third studio album. Unlike fellow mopey Irishman Morrissey, Rice's melancholy has always been irresistably beautiful. His constantly so-close-to-tears vocals have lent a fragility and vulnerability to his music. On 'My Favourite Faded Fantasy' he takes his tried and tested formula of songwriting and draws it out - stretches every track - into something that is, in the end, full and staggeringly beautiful.
This is thanks in no small part to the full orchestration this album boasts. At eight tracks, the album looks at first like a very long EP. But the track lengths ('It Takes A Lot To Be A Man' sits at 9:33) are indicative of what is a very full album. And yet it's as refreshing and often as fragile, gentle and as staggeringly beautiful as ever. If not more so, because of those well timed string sections, delicate percussion that punctuates at exactly right times and the restraint everyone shows.
The myriad of orchestral beauty does not distract from Rice's vocals, which are definitely the star of a very pretty show here. Much of his story telling now is less regretful and spiteful (as it was mostly on '9'), and he now sings with quiet confidence, liberally giving advice, possibly to a younger audience. So his melancholy is now not so insulated and his muisc may, in that case be, less about catharsis and more about doing something bigger and grander.
The only misteps are the afore mentioned 'It Takes A Lot To Be A Man' and 'The Box', both of which feel very contrived in the way they are drawn out and build to heady crescendos. 'The Box' even has a horn section. Too much Damien. Too much. Whereas on the title track, 'I Don't Want to Change You', 'Trusty and True' and the very delicate and beautiful closing track, the slow builds to breathtaking peaks feel very natural and restrained just enough for them to not be twee or cheesy.
This is Rice at his peak so far. He has found a way of retaining his essence and building on it and it is, without a doubt, techincally his best album. It feels like good pacing too. I just wonder how long this album will stick with you once you've listened to it a few times.
WVS
This is thanks in no small part to the full orchestration this album boasts. At eight tracks, the album looks at first like a very long EP. But the track lengths ('It Takes A Lot To Be A Man' sits at 9:33) are indicative of what is a very full album. And yet it's as refreshing and often as fragile, gentle and as staggeringly beautiful as ever. If not more so, because of those well timed string sections, delicate percussion that punctuates at exactly right times and the restraint everyone shows.
The myriad of orchestral beauty does not distract from Rice's vocals, which are definitely the star of a very pretty show here. Much of his story telling now is less regretful and spiteful (as it was mostly on '9'), and he now sings with quiet confidence, liberally giving advice, possibly to a younger audience. So his melancholy is now not so insulated and his muisc may, in that case be, less about catharsis and more about doing something bigger and grander.
The only misteps are the afore mentioned 'It Takes A Lot To Be A Man' and 'The Box', both of which feel very contrived in the way they are drawn out and build to heady crescendos. 'The Box' even has a horn section. Too much Damien. Too much. Whereas on the title track, 'I Don't Want to Change You', 'Trusty and True' and the very delicate and beautiful closing track, the slow builds to breathtaking peaks feel very natural and restrained just enough for them to not be twee or cheesy.
This is Rice at his peak so far. He has found a way of retaining his essence and building on it and it is, without a doubt, techincally his best album. It feels like good pacing too. I just wonder how long this album will stick with you once you've listened to it a few times.
WVS
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