Rating: NNN
If you felt Ryan Adams’s lugubrious 2007 offering, Easy Tiger, was a little on the lifeless side, there’s a reason. It turns out he left most of his amped-up tunes from that recording session in the vault. Now he’s releasing them for no particular reason except that it’s been a whole two years, eons in Adams’s over-prolific world, since his last proper record. (That joke metal album doesn’t count.)
There’s plenty here to compare to his unfairly criticized Rock N Roll record: new wave influences, contemporary alt-rock. The difference is that Adams sounds comfortable rather than out to prove a point. It also helps that the supremely competent Cardinals can ably follow him through all his twisting musical tangents while making him better along the way.
Top track: Ultraviolet Light
