Rating:
7
Fact: Between 1995 and 1999 Ryan Adams was leader of the North Carolina alt-country band Whiskeytown, lauded early on as potentially doing for that genre what Nirvana did for theirs.
Probability: Though our understanding of time is largely limited to its seemingly linear progression we may someday be able to travel through the fourth dimension more freely.
"Cold Roses" is either Ryan Adams' sixth or eighth / ninth studio release since going it alone five years ago. Sixth if you count "Love Is Hell" as a single entity since it has now been released as an LP as well as the original EPs Parts 1 & 2. It is the eighth / ninth if you count actual discs of recorded material you could stuff into your player since "Cold Roses" is a two disc set and "Love Is Hell" is still confusingly available in its multiple incarnations forcing deep collectors to buy the same songs twice over three discs. Idiots.
Oh, and I'm not counting Whiskeytown's post-breakup "Pneumonia" which is supposed to have undergone enough re-recording by Adams and producer/drummer Ethan Johns to make it a defacto Adams solo effort.
All of this bean counting is in response to the industry assumption that Adams can't write a song he won't eventually record and release. The joke started when "Demolition," a collection of demos and rarities, was issued on the heals of "Gold." The gag seemed sadly true when "Rock N Roll" fell on its beer swilling face while "Love Is Hell" waited in the can as Adams and his label argued the whole LP / EP issue. Adams continues to fuel this fire with the release of “Cold Roses” as a double disc (which actually shows restraint by limiting its content to a reasonable nine tracks per disc, hardly more than “Gold's” total of sixteen) plus talk of multiple new releases this year. I think there are supposed to be six or maybe a hundred. It’s not clear. What we do know is that Adam’s feels confident enough in his writing to keep up the pace, opting to not fade away at the risk of burning out an audience still wary from a spotty year or two.
If “Gold” and “Rock N Roll” were respectively piano-pop and punk-lite departures from the alt-country norm Adams established with “Heartbreaker,” then “Cold Roses” is both a slight return and something of an anachronism. The album takes Adams back to his often romanticized, jangling North Carolina roots but rather than close the circle where his solo career started or someplace he’s been since, Adams and his new backing band The Cardinals take it back further to a sound closer to a pre-“Pneumonia” Whiskeytown. In fact, this is the post Whiskeytown Ryan Adams everyone expected to hear then promptly forgot about after falling for the aching beauty of “Heartbreaker.” How he got there may not be so mysterious. Allow me to apply some pop-psychology to the situation:
Let’s say you’ve been in a relationship for four or five years and then that relationship ends.
Whiskeytown. Maybe it’s your fault, maybe it’s a combination of things. It’s not important. There are a few very predictable stages you are likely to pass through before achieving full recovery. First you’ll need to settle unfinished business – return the box of things, tell your friends, move out.
Pneumonia. Once the shock wears off you’ll begin feeling the pain of loss. This may cloud your judgment, making it seem reasonable to leave phone messages full of hurtful words
Adams called the band “a creative prison.”. The adrenaline rush that accompanies anger will ebb and leave you feeling hung over. In your loneliness you may drink. You may also accidentally find the singular place where all the good of the past few years and all the possibilities of an unknown future intersect like overlapping shadows from stained glass.
”Heartbreaker.” You may wallow in this wistful woeful beauty. Your friends may stop calling you until you fucking snap out of it. By necessity or chance you finally come around, but you are now unsure of what to do. So much or your identity has been wrapped up in your relationship and getting over it that you don’t know who you are anymore. You’re certainly not the person you were before. So you move to the city and try new things. Fun things. Maybe even dangerous stupid things.
”Gold, ” Parker Posey, “Rock N Roll.” This kind of behavior can only go on for so long before you get tired, and when you’re tired you want to go home. And when you are unsure of where home is because you’ve spent the last few years moving around, you go to where you came from before any of this started. Someplace safe and comforting, and you remember how good it feels to be part of something bigger than yourself. You contemplate getting back together with your ex.
Adams floats then denies rumors of a Whiskeytown reunion in 2003. But maybe you’re ready to look for another relationship, to start something with someone new
The Cardinals, something familiar but this time on your terms. After all, people are still asking about you and your ex. This time it’s mostly about you.
Though it is still clearly a solo album “Cold Roses” revisits the familiar feel and rural themes of his old band, even leaning on the casual harmony of backing vocalist Rachael Yamagata who wears Caitlyn Cary’s old shoes with aplomb. Instrumentation is straightforward country, gently lush with fiddles, slide-guitar and plenty of swaying mid-tempo rock. Even the updated flourishes call to a past full of Allman Brothers 8-tracks and early Neil Young. There are a few crooning ballads and a genuine stomp or two, but this is largely blacktop-ready and jukebox tested, perfect for nostalgic urban transplants with a weekend to drive the back roads home. Maybe we can go back in time for a song or two.
See also Whiskeytown and The Jayhawks "Rainy Day Music" without the CS&N fixation.
