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Critic's pick: Ryan Adams and the Cardinals

Critic's pick

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals

Cardinology

By now, Ryan Adams' place in the pantheon of new-generation rocker-songwriters is secure. After his alliance with the Americana-savvy Cardinals was solidified during the making of three consecutive albums in 2005, Adams' songwriting prowess evolved from the country-driven tough-love stride of Whiskeytown into plaintive, poetic Neil Young-style confessionals that sound epic and homemade. That he continues to have a bottomless supply of pop hooks in which to steep his songs only ups the appeal.

On Cardinology, Adams doesn't so much shift course as refine it. At its best, there is still a languid streak of tragic country to his musings that are underscored by steel guitar, an unassuming melodic flow and a singing voice that is tirelessly but immaculately plaintive.

Typical of Cardinology's regal despondency is Crossed Out Name, in which Adams strolls down the bustling streets of New York City but feels inconsolably alone. The song is set to an acoustic guitar stutter that struggles to find daylight. By the time it reaches the chorus ("I feel like a page with a crossed-out name"), sparse piano notes punctuate the title like hammers.

More hopeful, but only slightly so, is Cobwebs. Against a churning guitar/percussion vibe reminiscent of early U2, Adams paints bewilderment in breathy, fragmented verses: "The static in the attic is making me just confused."

Later, on Evergreen, Adams embraces one of his most beloved inspirations — the rustic Workingman's Dead-era music of the Grateful Dead. A sleepy shuffle, Evergreen is colored by pedal steel guitar that seems to echo from a faraway canyon and acoustic guitar and piano lines that follow Adams' hushed singing like bouncing balls.

Not all of Cardinology nestles into the sit-down downer country that has marked Adams' music since Jacksonville City Nights, the best of the 2005 albums. Magick cranks things up with chunky guitar riffs that suggest '70s arena rock and a bobbing chorus about an impending doomsday both personal and playful ("everybody's hit the ground, arms folded, head down").

Like last year's Easy Tiger album, Cardinology is a welcome serving of efficiency from an artist as prolific as Adams. Its 12 hook-filled songs clock in at a crisp 40 minutes, which was the standard running time of the '70s records with which Adams seems so infatuated. Even the 51/2-minute piano ballad Stop, which ends the album, breezes by. It recalls Time Fades Away-era Young, but with a knowing sense not only of the damage done but of the healing ahead. "If you wanna make it stop," Adams sings in a voice full of more promise than at any other moment on the album, "then stop."

The ghost of cosmic country innovator Gram Parsons still spooks these recordings, but from a greater distance. His wayward country presence is felt more in the escapist lyrics of Like Yesterday ("I take a sleeping pill and feel a little less pain") than in the music, which is adorned with hints of vintage, Brook Benton-style soul that never sound imitative.

And then there is the pure pop clip of Born Into a Light and its slightly evil twin Fix It. Both run like freight trains with deeply embedded guitar hooks, lyrics that teeter between loss and redemption, and a sense of want that embraces rock 'n' roll in ways that only Adams' hapless, restless spirit can.

Walter Tunis, Contributing Music Critic