Ryan Adams - 29

Ryan Adams is a prolific songwriter. He also has a tendency to release every single musical whim he conceives, which might explain the concept album duo of Rock'n'Roll and Love is Hell in 2003 and the trio of albums--Cold Roses, Jacksonville City Nights, and 29--he released in 2005.

Each of his albums in 2005 seemed to be a retreat into older and more basic musical styles. The double-disc Cold Roses was a return to the alt-country of his Whiskeytown days; Jacksonville City Nights was a further retreat into straight-up classic Bakersfield country. His third release of the year, 29, digs even deeper into the primordial soup of Americana, exploring folk, a bit of rockabilly, and country blues roots. In a way, it's like Adams's own version of Nebraska, a stark, monocromatic affair that feels like a late night inside a whiskey bottle.

However, the Nebraska comparison is rather misleading. Springsteen's haunting 1980 masterpiece was a solo effort; just the Boss with a guitar, harmonica, and 4-track tape recorder in his bedroom. Minimal overdubs (things like the mandolin in "Atlantic City," adding his own vocal harmonies, etc.), but everything was Springsteen. Ryan Adams usually has at least Ethan Johns (who also produces) playing with him on every track, and they each usually play two or three instruments. Adams layers in two or three guitars, maybe a piano, while Johns adds bass, drums, and other guitarwork. One song--"Blue Sky Blues"--features cellos and a trombone, even. So while these songs feel more skeletal than even most of the songs on Nebraska did, there's more involved in each track. Nebraska was an off-the-cuff solo recording because that's what it needed to be. The songs on that record don't work in the context of a full band, and so there's a simplicity, a stripped-down approach to them that works because that's what the songs demand. But with 29, you get the feeling that this--like so much else that Adams does--is an affectation, a style he is playing in not because the songs need that treatment, but because he likes to show off his knowledge of rock and roll history and of genre. This is, like virtually every album Adams has ever released, a genre exercise. And while he does indeed know these genres very well and can play convincingly within them, you can't help but wish he'd find a voice that belongs to him rather than someone else.

All that being said, is 29 a good album? Yes, on its own terms. It's decidedly not the best album that Adams has ever released, and it could definitely have done with some serious editing (I mean, the faux-tango of "The Sadness" is just unnecessary, and "29" is a straight-up rip off of The Grateful Dead's "Truckin'," though at least it's done fairly well). The nine songs on this record seem to drag for longer than they need to, and the lyrics are too word heavy. "Strawberry Wine," for instance, is one of the strongest songs on the record, but could have done with being about two minutes and a couple of verses shorter than it was. You get the feeling that Adams was either (a) making the songs up off the top of his head or (b) suffered from serious blunt trauma which rendered him incapable of knowing when a song should be over or how many words to cram into a single song. Honestly, there are some decent tracks on here--"29," for all its lack of originiality, is at least interesting and fun, and "Strawberry Wine," Carolina Rain," and "Voices" (which suffers from a few too many vocal tics to be a truly excellent song) are fairly strong--but most of it feels like filler. It's strange, since Adams surely didn't need to worry about recording more to fulfill some sort of contractual obligation (I mean, this is his third album of the year. He released 41 tracks over four discs. Surely he was, if anything, ahead of the game). With strong song selection and fuller arrangements, this could have been a fantastic album. As it is, 29 turns out to be a relatively weak record from someone whom we know can do better.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Ryan Adams, "Carolina Rain"