Ryan Adams is, by all accounts, the enfant terrible of alternative country music, as prolific and unpredictable as Mozart was in his day. Whether he's considered an actual genius depends on the ear of the beholder, but he's capable of making some damn fine music.
Adams hit the scene in the early '90s with Whiskeytown, a band of shifting lineup that put out three acclaimed albums in five chaotic years. In his solo career since then, he has veered from country to pop and back again, churning out songs and recordings the way Carter used to make little liver pills and burning a certain number of collaborators and bridges on the way. His live shows are notorious for their unpredictability, Adams' erratic behavior is often apparently fueled by consumption of alcohol and other mood-altering substances.
Cold Roses is the first album for Adams since he broke his wrist in a nasty fall from the stage during a performance; and the first of a purported three albums he plans to release in 2005. And it's a double album. It's really a double album in the old sense, with nine tracks on each disc, barely more than a lot of folks try to cram onto one CD these days.
These two discs contain 18 tracks of songs about loss and longing. All that loss and longing could weigh the listener down, but in its brevity and variety Cold Roses mostly avoids that pitfall. Adams is nothing if not a chameleon, and here he takes an amble through the Americana songbook, hitting gospel, rockabilly, folk, country and more. Disc 1 abounds with imagery from nature -- birds, water, stars, sunshine -- while Disc 2 is practically a theme album built on flowers, particularly roses.
He's joined by a muscular ensemble of seasoned pros, including Cindy Cashdollar on steel and slide guitars and J.P. Bowersock on electric guitars. Catherine Popper and Brad Pemberton anchor things on bass and drums respectively, and Popper provides lots of harmony vocals.
The first disc opens with "Magnolia Mountain," which touches on the sounds of the usual suspects: Byrds, Burritos, Grateful Dead, and Roy Orbison, who Adams often echoes in his high, mournful vocal style. It's an auspicious start, blending country, soul and gospel, one of the finest alt-country songs released for a good long while. "Sweet Illusions" could be a John Phillips song, its '60s folk-pop vibe a reasonable facsimile of the Mamas and Papas sound. "Beautiful Sorta" is a finger-popping rockabilly romp, a perfect example of a fun song about pain and loss.
The quieter tracks highlight Adams' vivid use of language, with lines like "She runs through my veins like a long black river / and rattles my cage like a thunderstorm," from the final track "How Do You Keep Love Alive." Or "I don't dare touch anything because it's evidence of us / and it means everything, well sort of" from "Now That You're Gone."
Things lighten up a little on the second disc, the songs a bit more up-tempo. Adams is longing for domestic ease on "Easy Plateau," and blowing his blues harp on "Dance All Night." Highlights are "Let It Ride," a rocking shuffle that's a little less pensive and a little more repetitive, but still has a downer of a message at its core; and the title track, a bit of country rock that would be at home in Leon Russell's "Hank Wilson" songbook, full of storm and twang.
An oddity is "Blossom," with a chorus that doesn't seem to fit the verses. The verses are lovely evocations of bruised love: "Without anyone to love you / what will you blossom into," but a chorus that slips into Moody Blues territory, "Blossom for me rose / you're the picture of my love . . ." in an oddly syncopated rhythm.
The discerning listener could probably make one really strong album out of the songs on these two discs, but no two would probably agree on which ones to leave off, because when it's good, Cold Roses is very good. In the meantime, don't hold your breath about those other two albums in 2005, and don't plan on seeing Ryan and the Cardinals. Much of their summer-fall tour was cancelled after Adams cut short a show and left the stage after publicly chastising a band member for a perceived mistake. So if you want to hear what Ryan Adams has been up to so far this year, the only way right now is on this album.
