Damien Rice

O appeared in 2002, with “The Blower’s Daughter”, “Cannonball” and “Volcano” giving several ways into its intimate world. Acoustic instruments provide the foundation, but the arrangements have more space and variation than the idea of a singer alone with a guitar suggests. Another voice or a sustained string line can alter the direction of a song without overwhelming it.

The pauses matter as much as the climaxes. Rice’s phrasing often leaves a thought hanging for a moment before the melody resolves, so the listener becomes aware of the effort inside a seemingly plain line. The record is most effective when its quieter passages are allowed to keep their scale.

9 followed in 2006. “9 Crimes” begins from a spare piano setting, while other tracks allow the sound to become more abrasive. My Favourite Faded Fantasy in 2014 expanded the arrangements again, with longer musical developments and more room around the familiar emotional intensity.

These three albums make a useful sequence because they show how the frame can grow without making the central voice feel less exposed. A first listen should leave room for the complete songs to unfold; isolating only the most dramatic minute can miss the reason it has any force. Rice’s music depends on the distance between a near-whispered thought and the point at which holding it quietly seems impossible. The movement between those states is where much of the writing becomes audible.