Damien Rice
photo: malingering (flickr) · cc by 2.0 ↗Irish singer-songwriter (b. 1973) who left the Dublin band Juniper and busked his way through Europe before self-recording his 2002 debut "O," a hushed-to-explosive set of acoustic confessionals cut with cellist and co-vocalist Lisa Hannigan. Songs like "The Blower's Daughter" and "Cannonball" turned raw, unpolished vulnerability into a commercial sound, shaping a wave of confessional singer-songwriters who followed him.
Rice's connection to Cohen is explicit rather than inferred: he wrote and released "Back to Her Man" as a self-described homage to Cohen, adopting his hushed, devotional, half-spoken vocal delivery for the tribute.
listen forCohen's "Suzanne" is barely sung at all, more intoned over fingerpicked guitar; Rice's own homage "Back to Her Man" leans on that same low, unhurried near-speech, letting the words carry the melody rather than the other way around.
Rice "wears his influences on his sleeve," and Radiohead's quiet-to-loud dynamic shift is the clearest one across "O" — a hushed acoustic verse detonating into a full-band wall of noise instead of building conventionally toward a chorus.
listen forRadiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" holds back its full-band swell until the very end; Rice's "Cannonball" uses the same trick on a smaller scale, letting a plain guitar-and-voice verse erupt into strings and drums right when the song threatens to stay quiet forever.
Buckley's raw, unguarded vocal delivery — using the voice as a fragile instrument rather than a polished lead — is named alongside Radiohead as a direct touchstone for Rice's own hushed, close-mic'd singing.
listen forBuckley's "Grace" lets his voice crack and hover at the edge of falsetto without smoothing it over; Rice's "Amie" does the same, leaving breath and imperfection audible instead of mixed away.