GorillaBearBear
22-07-2007, 04:10 PM
Anyone else got it?
I was a little bit reticent about how good it would be, because the three albums he released in 2005 were slightly disappointing. Cold Roses was brilliant, but way way too long, Jacksonville City Nights was pretty cool, but a little bit boring in places, and 29 had some absolutely fantastic songs on it, but also some absolute dross.
So the prospect of another record with his band behind him was sort of good, but also sort of bad. Especially when I looked at the track listing, it looked like he might be descending back into the worsts of his Rock'N'Roll excesses.
So I'm really pleasantly surprised by the album. It manages to find a really nice midpoint between his early Heartbreaker and Gold stuff, and his newer rockier stuff, but not in the "some songs are like this, other songs are like this" way that that statement normally implies. Each individual song is a mixture of all my favourite bits of Ryan Adams. This is most present towards the beginning, I guess, especially Everybody Know's, which has a beatiful hook and some great lyrics, along with a big band feel and a really great country twang. I'm tempted to say he's gone some way to recapturing the whiskeytown sound, but it's not nearly as painfully self-aware as any of there oeuvre. Easy Tiger has an easiness and naturalness to it that works really well.
It's a measure of how much I like this album that even his worst excesses (Halloweenhead) don't come off sounding adolescent and idiotic (read, most of RockNRoll) but actually just comes out as really excellent fun.
So yeah, anyone else got it? If you don't I really recommend you get it
I was a little bit reticent about how good it would be, because the three albums he released in 2005 were slightly disappointing. Cold Roses was brilliant, but way way too long, Jacksonville City Nights was pretty cool, but a little bit boring in places, and 29 had some absolutely fantastic songs on it, but also some absolute dross.
So the prospect of another record with his band behind him was sort of good, but also sort of bad. Especially when I looked at the track listing, it looked like he might be descending back into the worsts of his Rock'N'Roll excesses.
So I'm really pleasantly surprised by the album. It manages to find a really nice midpoint between his early Heartbreaker and Gold stuff, and his newer rockier stuff, but not in the "some songs are like this, other songs are like this" way that that statement normally implies. Each individual song is a mixture of all my favourite bits of Ryan Adams. This is most present towards the beginning, I guess, especially Everybody Know's, which has a beatiful hook and some great lyrics, along with a big band feel and a really great country twang. I'm tempted to say he's gone some way to recapturing the whiskeytown sound, but it's not nearly as painfully self-aware as any of there oeuvre. Easy Tiger has an easiness and naturalness to it that works really well.
It's a measure of how much I like this album that even his worst excesses (Halloweenhead) don't come off sounding adolescent and idiotic (read, most of RockNRoll) but actually just comes out as really excellent fun.
So yeah, anyone else got it? If you don't I really recommend you get it