| November 24, 2025 (Greystones, IE) // Garrett Anthony Rice’s single release, “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder” and surprise single “As Magic as the Snow,” captures two distinct but intertwined shades of reflection. Both pieces explore how loss and memory leave their shadow long after loved ones have left us. “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder” is quiet in a nearly holy way. The newest song from his upcoming double album, Equinox, reveals itself with the consideration of coming to terms with the past. Built on a melody that unfurls like a gentle guitar accented with soft flourishes of piano, you might think of the song less as a performance and more as a moment of memory. The writing feels like it is coming from those quiet corners of emotion, the moments when absence isn’t sharp, but simply part of the landscape. The spirit of the song is not to reconcile what has been lost. Instead, it captures the elegiac form of what once was. Whether the absence comes in the way of death, estrangement, or time doing what time does, the way Rice approaches distance is full of grace and tenderness that feels earned. |
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Listen to “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder” HERE |
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The chorus is where everything flourishes. It’s straightforward, direct, and open. At some point, when the bridge rises, it inflates into something that feels almost cathartic, where a choir of harmonies lift, and suddenly, grief becomes incandescent and bittersweet. The emotional architecture of the song is effortless but entirely purposeful. It’s the sound of someone discovering how to live with what is missing. The companion track, “As Magic as the Snow,” adds a stark seasonal poignancy to the pairing. Far from a conventional Christmas song, it carries a darker undercurrent: a portrait of childhood grief seen through a winter lens. Inspired by the image of a young boy climbing his favourite hill at Christmas to visit the spirit of a lost friend, the song pairs innocence with ache, finding a quiet kind of light within sorrow. |
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Listen to “As Magic as the Snow” HERE |
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Within Equinox, “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder” is a breath between movements. Earlier work either pressed into, or pulsed with, the cinematic gospel (“Eden”) or reflective shimmer (“It’s Not the Summer”), yet in this song, the instrumentation and sentiment boil things down to the essentials: love, loss, and the quiet take on how to face both. It’s not a song that asks for attention. It earns your attention tenderly, slowly, and with respectable honesty. |
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Garrett Anthony Rice // Credit: Karin Janssen |
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About Garrett Anthony Rice |
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Hailing from County Dublin, Ireland, and now living in Greystones, County Wicklow, for the last twenty years with his family, Garrett Anthony Rice intends to make a significant impact on the global music scene in 2025.
“EQUINOX” is the first double album (18 songs) to be released by a debut solo artist artist as their second record in musical history, so the task of writing and completing this record was pretty daunting and enormous.
Garrett released his debut album under the alias of (i) CONSULT in October 2023, entitled "Reflections Part II, the very best of……" which was streamed in 93 countries and piqued the interest of UK producer Chris Potter (The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, U2 and The Verve/ Richard Ashcroft) in late 2023.
Out of a possible 30 recorded demos, 18 were selected and recorded throughout 2024, both in the UK and Ireland, and already, the well-known and esteemed music professionals who worked on this record and have heard it are lauding it as the record of the year.
“My Sons” was the first single from the record released on 28 February 2025 which Garrett wrote for Mrs. Peggy Gallagher, mother of OASIS’ Liam and Noel, when they were still estranged. The song ties into the other diverse themes on the album, which industry professionals are already touting as one of the best Irish albums ever made.
This new single, “Property (An Ode To Roger Syd Barrett, a genius, 1946-infinity),” is a tribute to Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd, and it attempts to reverse the tired narrative that he was an artist to be pitied and avoided rather than the influential and brilliant songwriter he was.
“EQUINOX” will be available to pre-save closer to the time of release on vinyl and all platforms. |
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