Kathmandu, Feb. 22 -- Damien Rice makes heartbreak music. This is the kind of music that is meant to be listened to after heartbreak but it is also the kind of music that will break your heart. Rice's albums run the gamut of emotions, from love and loss to desire and loneliness, regret and quiet intimacy. But there is something comforting in them, as if the music itself were a cocoon, enveloping you, entombing you.

From the very first strains of 'Delicate', off his first album O, Rice wears his emotions on his sleeve, singing as if pained, as if all the hurt in the world lays on his shoulders and all he can do is give it voice. This is a kind of melancholy that is pervasive, that sieves off of the album in waves, pulling you under with i...