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Ryan Adams | Ashes & Fire

PAX-AM/Capitol (2011)
By MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER  |  October 4, 2011
3.5 3.5 Stars

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Historically, Ryan Adams has released, via labels or for download, every idea he's put down on tape. The dude barely has a filter. Some consider him prolifically gifted, others annoyingly egotistical, but then when he waits a couple of years to drop something new, the anticipation is that much greater. Ashes & Fire is as close as it gets to the brilliance of his first post-Whiskeytown offering, Heartbreaker. It's a subdued affair, rarely breaking much more than an acoustic guitar– and light-piano sweat, except on the honky-tonk jangle of the title track. But Adams's songwriting has long been his strong suit, and his lyrics here are more than enough to carry the weight. A song like "Dirty Rain" — with its "Waiting outside while you find your keys/Like bags of trash in the blackening snow/City of neon and toes that freeze" — paints such a vivid scene, it's like getting lost in a sonic picture book. Even the sappiest lines ("I will shelter you with my love and forgiveness") are saved by an unwavering earnestness and, given Adams's melancholy recording history, dispense a positively restrained sense of hope.
Related: Trans Am | What Day Is It Tonight? Trans Am Live, 1993 - 2008, Various Artists | Where the Action Is: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965 - 1968, Various Artists | Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966–1970, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Music, Ryan Adams, Ryan Adams,  More more >
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