My Favourite Faded Fantasy

Personnel: Damien Rice (vocals, acoustic guitar); David Rawlings (background vocals).Arranger: Damien Rice.Damien Rice doesn't do anything in a hurry. He lets his songs unfold at a deliberate, almost stately pace and he's similarly unconcerned about rushing through his career, taking a full eight years to deliver 2014's My Favourite Faded Fantasy, which amounts to only his third record in 12 years. Other artists who have experienced a similarly long gestation period return with long, overblown works, but not Rice. He teamed with Rick Rubin, the Zen master of acoustic basics, to shape an exquisitely textured collection of eight songs that runs just a hair over 50 minutes (a simultaneously released deluxe edition contains just one bonus cut). Rice doesn't greatly expand his aesthetic -- he's still equal parts Jeff Buckley and Thom Yorke, cut with the sullen singer/songwriter sophistication of Nick Drake -- but refinement is Rice's signature. He whittles away the excess in his words and m