Ralphy's C.D. Reviews

Review date 22-01-2001:

Nine Days - C.D. The madding crowd

The reason why I purchased this CD lies in my vacation in the northwest of the United States and Canada in the summer of 2000. I had already heard "Absolutely (story of a girl)" on Dutch radio before we went to the States, but while cruising in our lease-car this was the song I most heard on the radio, ironically I had brought tapes from home, but the car had a CD-player instead of a cassette-player, so we ended up listening more to the radio as planned. So now every time I hear "Absolutely" I think back to this vacation, just as "Two princes" by the Spin Doctors will always be connected in my mind to my '93 Florida-vacation and "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls to my '98 southwest USA vacation. Because of my love of this song I decided to buy the album as soon as we were back from our holidays, so it's been in my possession for a couple of months now, but due to lack of time (a new job etc.) I haven't written a review of it yet, so here it goes.

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Nine Days are a 5-man band. Songwriters Brian Desveaux and John Hampson, who together take care of the lead vocals and the guitars, formed the band in the mid 90's on Long Island. The other members of the band are bassplayer Nick Dimichino, drummer Vincent Tattanelli and Jeremy Dean (he's the only non-New Yorker, he's from Michigan) on keyboards. Before they released their major-label debut album "The madding crowd" in May 2000 they had already released 2 self-made CD's and won a couple of talent searches. The biggest influences on their music according to themselves are artists like Bruce Springsteen, Kiss and Bob Dylan.

The title of this album "The madding crowd" was inspired upon the novel "Far from the madding crowd" by Thomas Hardy, which I must admit I know nothing about, but if I listen to the lyrics of this CD the reason the crowd has gone mad must be love and the relations that evolve from that emotion. Because that is what the words of these songs are about without exception. So, that is nothing new, but I also have to admit the way that they deal with those relationships (and the surrounding problems) is quite original, sometimes philosophical , at times bitter, incidentally reverend, but mostly fascinating. They do seem to pay a lot of attention to the words and therefore there seem to be quite a lot of them, sometimes perhaps too much. All the time they seem to be searching for the eternal question of how to get a good and working relationship, although they also seem to question if they ever will, because of the mix of emotions involved . The radiohit Absolutely (story of a girl)" is actually the perfect example for this with obviously paradox-lines like "how many lovers would stay just to put up with this shit day after day" and "I absolutely love her when she smiles". The other songs on the album don't quite grab your immediate attention like "Absolutely" does, but are for the most part worthy of a little further investigation.

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A good choice for second single is "If I am", which has featured on an episode of Dawson's Creek (love that show btw). And getting your song into one of those major adolescents TV-series seems to be a formula for success nowadays. The song "Sometimes" could just as easily have been taken out of an album of the Welsh band, the Manic Street Preachers, partly because of Brian Desveaux's lead vocals on lines like "I let you down you've lost your taste". It even has some of the melancholy that the Manics are famous for. "Bitter" on the other hand is just what the title says a bitter look back upon a failed relationship in Alanis kinda style ("you're indefinite you're incompetent inconsiderate", "since you're gone I'm much better than you"). "Crazy" is the best ballad (sort of) on the album with the same message "Women you can't live with them and you can't live without them" although not stated quite this harsh ("I'll say all the things that you said you wanted to hear but the words inside my head are better left unsaid"). Btw are they apologizing for their lyrics (which is completely unnecessary) when they say "the words inside my head are better than the words I've said"? Well "Wanna be" is maybe even more of a ballad, this time the guy just seems to have dealt with the break-up when she calls again and the trouble starts all over. The opener "So far away" is just that, a good rock song to start the album as is "Back to me". "Bob Dylan" is a hidden ode to one of their major influences including authorized samples of the master, but are they actually talking about drug-induced inspiration here "this oasis in my arms I approach it with disarm". "End up alone" to me is the weakest song and "Revolve" is the opposite lyrically of most songs on the album, because here the girl in question is put on a pedestal "I will continue to revolve around your sun". The last song to mention is "257 weeks", in my humble opinion one of the best especially musically. All in all this entire album is worth your money and I think the talented musicians of Nine Days will evolve in their songwriting in the future. My advice (for what it's worth): Do occasionally tackle another subjects besides relationships and sometimes less is more (wordswise). I rate this album with a 7.2 .

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