Johnathan Rice Trouble is Real

What is Rice? I suppose Rice is a dull mushy white staple diet; Rice is bland; Rice is stodgy with a leathery milk skin on top in an old-fashioned pudding: Damien Rice.

But then Rice is also a perfect accompaniment to stir-fry and curry; rice is special fried with little bits of meat, prawns, and spices from the Chinese take-out; rice is filling and wholesome and creamily good in risotto: Johnathan Rice.

One has learned to become wary about solo singer-songwriters with Gaelic and American connections over the past few years, especially those with surnames starting in 'R' and ending in 'ice'. It's a tried and tested formula for someone with an east-Atlantic accent to descend on us from the west with a fully packaged parcel of blandness that within weeks is sitting at the atop both the charts and every coffee table across the land: Damien Rice, Dido, Jem, anyone? Fortunately, not so Johnathan Rice.

Unlike those other "artists" who made it big in the US, Rice is an American, but developed a Glaswegian accent in his childhood before returning to highschool in Virginia, oh yeah, and he hasn't really made it big in America. Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad this side of The Pond, but like I say, we've learned a healthy fear of the singer-songwriter coming home. After finishing high school Rice ditched the idea of college and headed off to New York, all his worldly possessions wrapped in a gingham hanky, to seek his fortune on the city's club circuit, or so the story goes. There one imagines Rice in smoky bars developing his Neil Young and Joni Mitchel inspired writing into a cannon of songs approaching a more chipper Mark Eitzel, influenced, like the American Music Club main man, by drinks, parties, drugs, laughs, and loss, all of which are notable themes on Trouble is Real.

While Johnathan's writing might be very much informed by 60s folk, country innovators and more traditional Gaelic folk, the diversity of styles holds the interest throughout the album. From a slow string instrumental, through foot-stomping country of Lady Memphis, to the heart-wrenching folk lament of The Acrobat and rock stylings of Salvation day, Rice keeps the listener guessing from start to finish.

Trouble is Real might not be anything earth shatteringly innovative, and it might be a little more coffee-table friendly than some of the more avant-garde young folk artists working at the moment, but the strength of the songs and the diversity of themes and styles that Rice is able to work with makes for interesting listening. Unchallenging need not be a dirty word.