Search - Rice, Boyd :: The Way I Feel

Accepts the Darkness

Slacky B | Lake Charles, LA USA | 04/17/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Let me clarify something right away in regard to the reviewer who wrote there is no singing on this CD. If an individual says there's no singing on a recording that has a fair amount of singing on it, I induce this person has not listened to much of the recording. Now, for more substantial matters ... Rice's language on this disc is very often not pretty. Some is apparently racist. Whether he meant this language to shock or offend, I neither know nor care. Let me explain why I think this recording has merit. Rice is not afraid to admit that life is often about annoyance and nuisance and sometimes about what is undeniably intense pain. He admits that people are as they are, with their galaxies of flaws included. I can't imagine that self-help books have any place in his cosmology. I think he tries to see both himself and his world pretty much just as they are without ever resorting to the escapist optimism that seems to have become mandatory for U.S. citizens. He doesn't feel that either people or civilization have changed for the better at any point since the inception of civilization. The world Rice depicts isn't pretty or nice. The representation of the world and the way it really is and really works is, I think, more or less accurate. Rice is clearly an independent thinker and would prefer, all other things being equal, that others be independent thinkers as well; thus he doesn't feel that the listener has to agree with his worldview point by point. He is letting the listener know in a quite direct way that he's long since gotten rid of his rose-colored glasses. I'm reminded of the lyrics of James White: "I don't want to be happy. I don't think people are very pretty inside." The record should appeal to those who appreciate the lyrics of Glenn Danzig, Michael Gira, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Sage Francis and the band Portishead."