So just who is it Ryan Adams wants to be this time? Because it is at least clear that this alt-country troubadour is always chasing becoming something. The new Willie Nelson? Gram Parsons? The next Elvis? Springsteen? Morrissey? Evan Dando or Julian Casablancas? He’s certainly put his potential about a bit since the turn of the century, whoring himself across genres and through celebrity circles, demonstrating he can be enviably prolific and malleable, perhaps fearing that if he stands still people might stop looking at him for a moment. Here, following his shadowy masterpiece ‘Love Is Hell’ and attention seeking mainstream tantrum ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll’, all those ambitions are seemingly pushed out of view as he retreats close to the bare craft of the music that made him and he seemingly can’t stop making.
This is less alt and more malt-country, the kind of thing that’s been distilling since amplification turned things up for America’s folk music. At double album length it feels comfortable and part of something much bigger that never stops. The beautiful and resigned ‘Meadowlake Street’ on the first disc does contain some of ‘Love Is Hell’s lonely melancholy, sounding like rain clouds gathering over an already crestfallen soul. And ‘Beautiful Sorta’ with its Stonesy/Byrdsy pace and ‘Tonight’ from the second disc, sounding like a grunge Smiths, remind of his more contemporary surges. But otherwise this contains 80 odd minutes of pure driving country.
That makes him less individual on this record, but no less capable, and following stars is never going to make you truly individual anyway. It is more Tom Petty than Tom Waits, more Van Morrison than Morrissey. ‘If I Am A Stranger’ is wrapped in trad slide guitar and has a pace that your line-dancer could warm up to, ‘Dance All Night’ has the picked, wavering, atmosphere of a slight Neil Young, as does the more wholesome ‘When Will You Come Home’ and ‘Easy Plateau’ does a similar thing on the piano. This is the least challenging record he’s released in a while, but as far as the art of songwriting goes he’s still keeping his badge. And besides, apparently there are another 2 records coming before the year’s end.