Word: rice
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...internal Saudi turmoil couldn't come at a worse time for the Bush Administration. Vice President Cheney was in Riyadh just last weekend for talks with King Abdullah. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants to use the Saudi-founded Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), conceived as an economic body, as a vehicle for marshalling Sunni Arab support on regional security issues, particularly U.S. efforts to blunt Iranian ambitions. Rice has prevailed upon the original GCC members (Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman) to add Jordan and Egypt to their security loop. According to a Rice aide...
...Elephant” provides the most frustrating example of Rice’s skeletal songwriting and croaky delivery. Even when Rice manages to lift his singing above a three-inch voice, his songs vary in their degrees of success...
...Dogs” is likable enough, perhaps because it sounds like a less-catchy version of Train’s “Meet Virginia.” “Coconut Skins” gets itself going on a comparatively upbeat acoustic riff, until Rice mentions death and promptly squelches any optimism the listener may still possess. The second half of “Me, My Yoke and I” actually ascends to the level of rocking then comes off as just plain scary without a counterbalance to its six minutes of screechy anguish and unmitigated emotional hell...
...near-tears delivery that Jewel owned back when she sang “You Were Meant for Me” all those years ago. She’s now happily married to a country singer. So maybe there’s still a ray of hope for young Rice. Then again, Jewel also sang at an audible decibel level and employed such useful songwriting devices as hooks and recognizable rhythm and syntax, so maybe...
...with the exception of the highly annoying and entirely unnecessary 16-minute instrumental track (don’t ask), there’s nothing blatantly wrong with the album—other than the fact that it kind of makes you feel like giving up. If you liked Damien Rice before, when he was only mildly melancholy rather than out-and-out bipolar, then you’ll probably like this album. However, if you like coherent vocals, the occasional bass line, and just generally being alive, “9” is probably...