When a reclusive, multi-million-selling songwriter of an intense sentimental disposition disappears for eight years, then returns, there’s a lot to be exorcised on their return. Since Rice’s 2006 album, 9, the Irish singer has lived in Iceland and Los Angeles, while recruiting Rick Rubin and ending his relationship with longtime collaborator Lisa Hannigan. With her absence, a sense of sweetness and softness has gone, too. In its place are (mostly) Rice’s vocals, dramatic and pointed, as if directed at his own reflection. While he shares similar tropes with the great troubled troubadours – the whispers of Jeff Buckley, the introspective self-loathing of Elliott Smith, what he lacks is their warmth. With the Rubin-engineered orchestration – from the drunken Gypsy sway of It Takes a Lot to Know a Man to the Parisian wooing of The Box – fragility is replaced by a sense of recklessness and even vitriol.
- This article was amended on 30 October to correct the spelling of the artist’s name
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