New Albums!!!

I bought Damien Rice's new album - 9 and collected M.Ward's Post War from HMV (CityLinkMall) yesterday.

Let's start with M.Ward's album which I've plugged so many times here in my blog. Well, I finally got it!!!! The video for Chinese Translation is really great. Animation in chinese style. Not the Mulan varietal. Think of those long gone animation series of Sun Wu Kong that was shown during Chinese New Year where the movements of the characters are super fluid. The album is really really good. Not great but not many albums are these days anyway. M.Ward sings the songs that you'd want to hear if you're tired of the "new wave" bands, the piano-driven bands, the hiphop/r'n'b tunes. It's perfect for days when you just want to relax to some folksy, laid back songs sung by a voice that comprise one part bittersweet coffee, three parts wild honey (what the hell?) and laced with whiskey.

Then there is the excellent follow-up effort by Damien Rice. It's very "wow" - this second album. The first listen and it's an immediate liking for almost every song. And when you're confident enough to not put your face on your second album (ditto for first album), you're almost there. And the first voice you hear doesn't belong to him as well (it's his long time duet partner Lisa Hannigan). But the piano intro has got "Damien Rice" written all over. If you thought his previous album "O" was confessional, "9" is cathartic. Sometimes it gets a little too uncomfortable to hear. Because the songs sometime sounds like the words from a close friend who is down and out in love and life, pouring his heart out in a drunken stupor. Except there is no alcohol in this to dilute the awkwardness. The brilliant "Accidental Babies", the penultimate song in this album about a love triangle that has this line that goes "Is he dark enough? Enough to see your light?" which just does it for me. Makes it an even more appropriate song compared to "The Blower's Daughter" for the the movie Closer.

Oh yeah. I bought my first Chinese CD too! Not Rainie Yang. But Stephanie Sun Yanzi! Hahaha....