RSS Feed Album of the Week
Ryan Adams has finally found a focused musical stride with the release of his tenth pseudo-solo album Cardinology. Pseudo-solo because this release is not a solo effort what-so-ever, as it is credited to Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, his beloved--and incredibly tight--backing band who started recording with Adams back in 2005 on both Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Nights albums, and then again in 2007 on his Easy Tiger LP and Follow The Lights EP. In recent interviews, the notoriously rebellious alt-country singer-songwriter too often known more for his drinking, drugging and erratic behavior than his music is adamant that his solo days are behind him. He's a band man from here on out and by the sounds of Cardinology, this new camaraderie coupled with Adams' recent sobriety suits him well.
What hasn't changed in Adams' music is his knack for sentimentality ("Crossed Out Name" and "Evergreen" being two prime examples) and more so than that, the willingness to time and time again don his heart on his sleeve with lyrics that so often speak of heartache, love lost and pain as the human condition. With the exception of the album's only real rockin' track "Magick," Cardinology is a mostly contemplative and mellow affair.
You also have to hand it to the Cardinals for their musical dexterity. Though it's safe to categorize Cardinology under the genre of country rock (the guitar solo in "Like Yesterday" sounds an awful lot like the Allman Brothers' "Blue Sky") due to the omnipresence of electric and acoustic guitars interwoven with the slide guitar on most tracks, they stray from this comfort zone with surprising agility. Case in point, "Fix It," the first single and best stand-alone song from the album shows no signs of country twang, instead delivering a soulful guitar groove behind Adams' pleading lyrics to a past lover for a reprieve from senseless heartache. The band flips the switch back to rock riffs with "Go Easy," another ode to past lovers, but with Adams taking a softer approach to the demise of a doomed relationship by stating, "I love you still, and I always will." Pure heart on sleeve declarations.
"Born Into A Light" is the uplifting debut track on Cardinology that finds Adams harmonizing about "faith and hope, and all the strength to cope," surely inspired by the younger darker days behind him now. Darker days that again find themselves front and center on the album's quiet closer, "Stop." Backed by piano, strings and little else, Adams' voice shakes on this sleeping beauty as he speaks plainly and freely to his time spent in rehab fighting inner demons.
Prolific is a word often associated with Adam's writing--songwriting, blogging, authoring, etc.--as it seems he has a bottomless well of words to cull from within and push forth into the world with no regard for whether anyone is actually interested in hearing his musings or not. Over the last eight years of his career, Adams has released ten albums, three in 2005 alone, to drastically different critical acclaim and disdain. He falls amongst that list of brilliant artists who are either loved or hated, with middle grounders being scarce in the mix. Cardinology might not convert the non-believers, but the middle-of-the-roaders out there may find themselves wooed by Adams' unwavering knack for powerful songwriting, his new found humility and that band of killer musicians known as the Cardinals who seamlessly pull it all together.
