REVIEW: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals "Jacksonville City Nights"

Rating: 6

With "Jacksonville City Nights" (once re-named then un-named "September") Ryan Adams seems to be padding his resume and ever growing catalog with another genre album.  2003's "Rock-n-Roll" saw Adams stitching the "alt-" that usually preceeds his Country label onto straight-ahead Rock.  This time  he has shed the "alt-" altogether and embraced the Country within.  He's not quite ready for the Grand Ole Opry but there is plenty of slide steel and fiddle on most tracks to push the southern fried feel of "Cold Roses" away from the Allman Brothers and just a little toward the Stattlers. 

Songs evoke a bitter-sweet nostalgia for the deep south - humid nights, Jesus, scuffed cowboy boots and love lost for liquor.  Many numbers find Adams singing in a slightly lower register than his usual high tenor, creating a persona that is perhaps more earnest and certainly more relaxed even as he struggles to bridge the break in his own voice.  Maybe call it his church voice.  It also tends to bleed some of the urgency and twenties-something angst from his sound, a tension that is more than welcome when it does show up.  Then again Adams turned 30 last year, so...

The Cardinals prove to be a versatile and adept backing unit, good at building texture and varying the pace from tear drenched country to road ramblling blues.  Taken together, this year's releases - "Cold Roses," "Jacksonville" and the upcoming "29" - could mark a significant period of maturation for Adams as a songwriter even as he explores a few side tracks along the way.  You know what they say, peel an onion...