Damien Rice's first two albums, released in 2002 and 2006 respectively, were of a world in which people wanted to feel; his third, in 2014, years after the financial crash, was of a world in which they didn’t. In which the chart-topping music, at least in the UK, was centred mostly around rendering oneself insensate through drink, with lyrics that featured every possible combination of the words 'tonight', 'young' and 'forever'.
But time is a circle, and we’re ready to be sad again.
Anybody that has ever been in love has a friend in Damien Rice. His songs are wistful elegies to those that have gone from our lives, and the memories – sometimes soothing, sometimes haunting – left in their wake. Most will be aware of his early work. The likes of Cannonball, Blower’s Daughter and 9 Crimes were part of the backdrop of the early-to-mid noughties. Songs that made being sad feel good.
