Damien Rice '9': Aidin Vaziri | What's that familiar feeling burning a hole in your gut? Oh right, it's the bitter sting of disappointment. Four years in the making, "9," the follow-up to Irish folkie Damien Rice's captivating self-produced 2002 debut, "O," is an album that will break hearts for all the wrong reasons. Its predecessor combined all the singer-songwriter's shortcomings -- flat production, mumbled vocals, simple sentiments -- into a potent mix of incredibly sad and beautiful songs. Even the fact that Rice sold off the best tunes to the soundtrack for that horrible Jude Law and Julia Roberts vehicle, "Closer," did nothing to diminish their high-voltage melancholy. But this follow-up shows no signs of growth, no genuine angst to inform the overly somber air. Didn't that fling with Renee Zellweger mean anything to him? Never the most original lyricist, on the first album Rice was at least able to use his acoustic guitar and sweeping Jeff Buckley-style delivery to breathe new life into a cliched line like, "Can't take my eyes off you." Here things get downright absurd: "Dogs" finds him going on about "the girl that does yoga"; the chorus of "Rootless Tree" goes, "F -- you! F -- you! F -- you!"; and on "Coconut Skins," he sings over an obnoxious jangle, "You can hold her eggs but your basket has a hole," and "Time is contagious and we're all getting old." The rest of the album finds him grasping for fresh ideas. "The Animals Were Gone" sounds like a carbon copy of Leonard Cohen's "So Long, Marianne," while the CD comes to a close with 20 minutes of iPod-unfriendly ambient noise. The only track that sounds remotely reminiscent of past glories, complete with the moody cello backing, is the towering ballad "Elephant." But even that goes a bit wonky when midway through Rice declares that he is horny.
Keith Urban 'Love, Pain & The Whole Crazy Thing': Aidin Vaziri | There are four surefire ways to get attention for a new album: Marry someone famous, check into rehab, pose naked for Playgirl or thumb-wrestle a grizzly bear. Keith Urban has already ticked off the first three options from his list and seems like too big of a wuss to try the fourth. So he's wisely gone for secret option five: Make a decent album. "Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing" is not the inbred nu-country disc most people might expect from the Australian songwriter who recently wed Nicole Kidman. It's more of an intensely polished rock affair, with tracks like "Once in a Lifetime" and "Faster Car" trading in hokey Nashville twang for asteroid-size melodies. Like all the Nickelbacks of the world who mysteriously end up lingering on the charts for years, Urban sounds naggingly familiar on this CD. That's another dependable selling point.
Jerry Lee Lewis 
