Album Review – Ryan Adams

Review — By Andrew Evans on 09/10/11

“Last time I was hear it was raining”, sings Ryan Adams in the first line of Dirty Rain, the first song on Ashes & Fire, his eagerly anticipated 13^th studio album. Whether he knows it (or, in fact, means it) or not he could be singing about his own breathtaking career to date. With his much publicised drug issues fuelling his unprecedented work-rate, resulting in albums that, critically at least, were considered patchy, it has indeed been a while since Mr. Adams has been here, on the verge of releasing a new studio album, without the storm clouds of his personal life bursting open and overshadowing his tunes.

And what tunes they are. Before we go much further in delving into the merits of Ashes & Fire it is worth remembering that when Ryan Adams wanted to he has written some of the most beautiful music of anyone since the turn of the millennium. His 2000 debut Heartbreaker and its successor Gold, released a year later have earned their ‘classic’ tags, while 2004’s Love Is Hell remains – to a wider audience at least – an overlooked moment of absolute inspiration.

However, when people now write about Adams, what usually crops up are his ‘lost years’, in which he released five albums (one of them a double) in three years from 2005. This is the part when words like ‘career sabotage’ and ‘downhill’ pop up but the truth is that many ofAdams’ greatest works lie within this period. The fact that he released them to a generation that aren’t used to having to get their head round over 70 songs from the same man in little over 41 months meant that many gave up on him through sheer exhaustion.

So, with Ashes & Fire coming a long ol’ three years since his last new studio album (his metal side project Orion doesn’t count) after he ‘quit music’ in 2009 and Adams enjoying domestic bliss with actor Mandy Moore it is an album that has been made with its creator in a good place. “I had a nice time making this record”, he recently told The Guardian. And it shows.

This is by far Adams’ least chaotic album. It doesn’t fly off on tangents. The longest track is a shade under five minutes. His singing voice is often soft and restrained, as is the playing and the use of instrumentation. All of this adds up to Ashes & Fire being his most consistent work for a very long time, and it’s home to a few treats.

Come Home, which features Norah Jones on backing vocals, is a classic stripped down Adams ballad of the highest order, with subtle lapsteel weaving around a chorus that sees the singer urging a lover to return before sighing “i’ll always be your love”. The closing duo of Lucky Now and I Love You But I Don’t Know What To Say ensure it finishes on a high note, with the former’s pop hooks echoing his Gold era success, while the latter picks up where Come Home left off by offering four minutes of down-played crooning, again accompanied by Jones.

Chains of Love is the record’s most animated and best moment. Urgent strumming and sweeping strings underpin the only moment here where Adams lets loose and allows his voice to truly soar and you know what? It’s remarkably refreshing. You see, in a cruel twist of coincidence it is Ashes & Fire’s consistency that prevents it from becoming something really special. There are no duds here, and a small number of real gems but a lot of the record consistently trundles along in third gear.

There is stability in the lyrical content at odds with a lot of what Adams has written about in the past. You can tell he’s settled and although it’s fantastic to know that Adams is on the (relatively) straight and narrow, it makes for odd listening at times. “Nobody has to cry to make it seem real, nobody has to hide the way that they feel” he sings on Come Home, and it’s not the only time here that his choice of words is a little simplistic.

But let’s not dwell on the negatives. The main point to take out of Ashes & Fire is that Ryan Adams is once again at a point where he feels comfortable enough to release music. It’s a good album. Nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps the musical equivalent of that crazy, hell-bent old friend of yours that has now calmed down and grown up. Sure it’s great to see them doing well, but you can’t help but feel things were a little more interesting back in the day.

So, here’s to his return and we hope for many more. This is just the start of Ryan Adams Phase II.