Album Review: Ryan Adams – Easy Tiger

After the (at times brilliant) three album madness of 2005, Ryan Adams returned with the more straightforward Easy Tiger.  There are a couple of overblown rockers (Goodnight Rose, Halloween Head) which don’t help matters.  Equally off-putting is the hokey country of Tears of Gold.  However he’s better when he slows it down and plays it simple.  The rather bland Two (a duet with Sheryl Crow – edgy!) and Two Hearts are an improvement, but there are stronger tracks on the album.

Everybody Knows is a ringer for Neil Young in his acoustic, After the Gold Rush period.  It’s perfectly executed and all over in two and a half minutes.  The leisurely guitar picking of Oh My God Whatever, Etc works well, as does the bluegrassy Pearls On A String.  Finest song on the album is possibly piano ballad, Rip Off, a weary and worn-out ballad. 

He trawls back to his vast, unreleased tracks in the vault for two of the stronger tracks for wistful ballad Off Broadway and the drawling guitar plucking of These Girls (previously known as Hey There Mrs Lovely). 

It's not a classic Ryan Adams album, but it IS a typical Ryan Adams album: some great tracks, some bland tracks and some frustrating tracks.  The killer with Adams is he is capable of real brilliance, but an inability to stay focused dilutes his talent.

Album Review: Ryan Adams – Suicide Handbook (unreleased)

A man whose record company couldn’t keep up with his output, Ryan Adams recorded this double album, The Suicide Handbook in early 2001. It appears to be an almost entirely solo collection (some accompaniment from Bucky Baxter here and there), stretched over 21 songs, all with a quite similar mood. This can make it seem rather daunting to listen to. Some of the tracks here ended up on Gold, such as Wild Flowers, La Cienega Just Smiled, Just Saying Hi (aka Answering Bell), while others were held back for Demolition (She Wants To Play Hearts, Dear Chicago) and Off Broadway wasn’t released till 2007’s Easy Tiger. As far as I’m concerned, the versions here are superior to the ones on Gold. While that album suffered from over-production, here the songs are sparse, mainly just voice and guitar and they thrive. At least 11 of the other songs have not appeared on any official release, and they are well worth seeking out. Ryan Adams sings and plays guitar with real sensitivity, very much in ‘troubadour’ mode. Some of the stronger ones include For No One (aka Long and Sad Goodbye) and Cracks In A Photograph, helped by some piano touches, and You Don’t Know Me which features great slide guitar from Bucky Baxter. Piano ballad Idiots Rule The World has something of the feel he realized more fully on Love Is Hell. The better known tracks are equally strong, La Cienega Just Smiled, one of the stronger tracks on Gold, works well in almost demo form and final track Dear Chicago, sounding indistinguishable from the Demolition version sounds great with its ringing guitars and breathy vocals. Might be worth giving this one a proper release?