After a lengthy absence of eight years since his last LP, Damien Rice is back with his 2014 album, My Favourite Faded Fantasy.
Gone are the reliant backing vocals of Lisa Hannigan, a prominent feature previously, but it seems Rice isn’t short of ideas. My Favourite Faded Fantasy opens with the title track and quickly rushes airy fingerpicking and a falsetto vocal we haven’t heard much before from Rice. This is quickly followed by a much fuller instrumental body to the song with strings, keyboards and drums filling in where guitars usually do most of the work. Rice is well known for delivering crashing orchestral finales to his tracks but this opener offers an uncharacteristically rocky finale that suits Rice and a new sound.
Damien Rice Music
Vector Recordings/Warner Bros. Records Inc. (US and Canada)
The next song It Takes A Lot To Know A Man holds a strong melody that drives the track forward initially. The melody is reminiscent in its simplistic writing style to some of Lindsey Buckingham’s songs that contain a simple rhythm and few repeated sentences. But Rice takes this further on the track’s ten-minute journey with a quiet piano solo all but stopping the song entirely, before it begins again but this time with a sweeping strings driven orchestral segment. Gone are Rice’s big crashing and (deliberately) chaotic arrangements. This is a lot more traditional in style but perhaps even more captivating (and ear friendly) for the listener.
The album follows suit in this fashion with big orchestral moments taking over from Rice’s lyrical ponderings and rarely does he deliver the same small-scale acoustic guitar driven melodies we’ve seen of him before.
Only The Greatest Bastard brings us back to more familiar territory with a slow guitar melody and Rice almost whispering. Lyrics are deliciously intimate and heartfelt, “I helped you open out your wings, your legs, and many other things. Am I the greatest bastard that you know?” These verses are beautifully captivating and full of remorse but the chorus fails to deliver at the same level. Lyrics are disappointingly generic, “Some make it, mistake it, some force and some will fake it.” It seems Rice’s more polished orchestral sound is now his forte and personally I’m happy to embrace it.
Fans of Damien Rice will no doubt eat this up. His intimate style of playing is bolstered by even bigger orchestral arrangements than we’ve seen previously. These swallow tracks up and evolve them into something more hypnotic than his slow building acoustic works. Three albums in and Rice and is finally experimenting with a bigger band sound and with My Favourite Faded Fantasy he really delivers.
Author – Matt, Cardiff store
This may just be that last minute stocking filler you’ve been waiting for!
