Ryan Adams - Jacksonville City Nights: Album Review

Ryan Adams, Jacksonville City Nights (Lost Highway, 2005)
You'll recall that Ryan Adams and his new WCs The Cardinals' disc from earlier this year, Cold Roses, is a personal favorite of mine. Still, I know better than to get my hopes up too high for anything new of his. On this - supposedly his second of three albums this year - he more or less ditches the alt in alt-country and gets real twangy with it.

A KISS BEFORE I GO

The proceedings begin with Adams' now familiar one-two-three count off. I recall enjoying that on the last album. The sound here is not completely unlike Cold Roses, but way more heavy on the traditional country.

THE END

As much as I like so-called alt-country, which is basically rock music, I won't normally mess around with this kind of thing at all. I think the main draw here, for me at least, is Adams' singing. I guess it's worth noting that the playing on this, by his new WCs The Cardinals, is probably pretty good for what it is.

HARD WAY TO FALL

This would be about as close as the album comes to rockin', which is not very. I notice certain aspects of the songwriting that were carried over from the last album, even though as far as I know the two aren't especially related other than being released by the same artist in the same year.

DEAR JOHN

Maybe you already heard that Norah Jones guests on this one. Fortunately, it's not some Ryan Adams version of whatever her one hit song was - damn, what was that? I'm still not feeling this much though anyway.

THE HARDEST PART

And actually, yeah, this is another one of the semi-rockin' numbers. I like this, and most of the rest of these, as a song, but I wonder if I wouldn't have liked it that much better with a Cold Roses-style arrangement.

GAMES

I can appreciate what he's trying to do with this, but I did find it to be kinda generic-sounding compared to a lot of the rest of this stuff. I was waiting for it to take off somehow and it never really did.

SILVER BULLETS

In an album full of downers (thematically, I mean), this is probably the absolute low-point. In fact, if it goes any lower than this, I don't know if I want to hear.

PEACEFUL VALLEY

Like I said, if there's a draw to this album - because I really don't care for this kind of music - it's Adams' vocal performance. He's usually pretty good anyway, but he sounds especially committed here to that raw, emotional style of singing It's great see anyone take such chances these days.

SEPTEMBER

Not bad, even though at this point in the album it does come off as a bit redundant. It's like, We get it, you're devastated.

MY HEART IS BROKEN

Speaking of which, apparently his heart is broken as well. See what I'm saying? This one more so than the one before it feels superfluous.

TRAINS

Not very good - or maybe I just don't get it. Either way...

PA

I can appreciate the fact that this tells a story - one of the key characteristics for this genre of music - but it doesn't do anything especially interesting musically.

WITHERING HEIGHTS

Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the Kate Bush record with the similar (if not exactly the same) title. I'm sure he just did that to fuck with us. Not a bad tune though.

DON'T FAIL ME NOW

This is alright as a song, but I think it works perfectly as the end for this particualar album. Adams sounds real tired and out there.

COMMENTS: Like most Ryan Adams affairs (nullus), this has its moments. But this straight country shit is not really my thing, and even if you account for the difference in styles I don't think these songs are as good as the ones on Cold Roses.

BEST TRACKS: "A Kiss Before I Go" "The Hardest Part" "Withering Heights"