On Ryan Adams & The Cardinals' Easy Tiger and Follow the Lights

Through that fast-paced year of 2005, Ryan Adams (with and without his band, the Cardinals) released no less than three albums: Cold Roses--a double album that captured the raw, immediate beauty that rock music once caught in the able hands of such masters as the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, Bob Dylan and others, which was followed up by the unexpected, unadorned honky tonk mastery of Jacksonville City Nights, recorded in exactly the same way that they used to cut records down at Sun Records--and it sounded like it too. Next came an album that was actually recorded before the two preceding it, but was the last released. I guess Lost Highway felt that somehow might ease the blow of its dark, delicate majesty. Alas, to no avail--29 is a sonic travelogue through the shadow lands of broken ties, loneliness and addiction, a sort of Danteian warning for all those who might follow down the bleak abyss of empty bottles and crystal-encrusted baggies. It was the most produced work of the triad, but the production seemed to serve a purpose--a sort of sonic architecture of a damaged soul.

Then came the silence of a year. "What had happened?", we all wondered. The creative torrent, all those signposts down the ragged road cut through the night at breakneck speed had suddenly, seemingly run out of gas. Was it the quiet before the storm? Was he readying a country-rock magus opus that would bring tears to Gram Parsons' blood-shot eyes?

And then the announcement was made. After all the waiting and expectation, a new album was indeed to be released. It even had a write up by Stephen King to whet out collective appetite. Hot damn! He says it's even better than Cold Roses and Jacksonville! The appointed day came. We all rushed out and bought the CD (and completists like myself got the record as well--nothing beats vinyl, right? And orange vinyl to boot! Why not? It was a new Ryan Adams album, like manna dropped down from Heaven itself! Might as well go the whole nine yards). We gathered around stereos and record players to feast our ears.

And what did we get? Easy Tiger--a decent enough album. But to my ears it was lacking a certain umph. The ragged beauty of Cold Roses and JCN had been replaced by a rather slick production--a little too slick to my ears, as if Ryan wanted to stoke the fires of Grateful Dead comparisons a little more by presenting to the world an album of songs that had been sterilized in the laboratory of the studio much like the Dead's post-early seventies output.

Again--this is not to say it's a bad album. It is anything but. But the passion, the outright balls-to-the-wall daring of Cold Roses isn't there. The thrill of hearing the buzz of the amps before Beautiful Sorta is missing. Goodnight Rose is there, but its not the same electric affirmation we had grown to love from the live recordings.

The one song that really shines from the production is Tears of Gold, where the voices of Ryan and the Cardinals blend and take flight in a way that you have a very hard time getting in the live setting. And I did dig the simple, folkie elegance of Pearls On a String.

In short, Easy Tiger is an enjoyable album, but not the kind to rip your ears off and leave you salivating for more (like both Cold Roses and JCN did for me).

And then the EP Follow the Lights was released yesterday. And I know you shouldn't expect the Second Coming in the form of an EP, but this is Ryan Adams and the Cardinals we are talking about, so you will forgive me if I may have glanced skyward once or twice.

Well, it wasn't the second coming. But it did have its moments.

The song Follow the Lights itself sounds more like it belongs on a soundtrack album than anything else (I think I read somewhere that it actually is going to be used on some television show). But there was nothing in it that really grabbed me.

My Love For You Is Real has a little bit more going for it. It would have fit in nicely on Easy Tiger. Production wise, it was definitely born of the same sonic womb.

Blue Hotel is a song that I had already fallen in love with through the live recordings I had heard of it (and Ryan had already loaned it out to Willie Nelson). It is presented here as a more acoustic affair (as oppose it its more electric siblings that have graced stages near and far). It was a little more restrained than I would have liked. A good rendition--but where's the bite?

The cover of Alice In Chains' Down In a Hole might earn Ryan a place as vocalist in their next tour, if he'd be down with that. It is the first time on the record that we get a little of the old Ryan Adams' yarrah. And who else could have made a steel guitar sound so natural on an Alice In Chains' song?

The rest of the EP is comprised of new recordings of old songs. This Is It, originally off the tongue-in-check "fuck off, Lost Highway" record, Rock N Roll presents an interesting new take on it, that, for whatever reason, sounds to my ears like it could have been recorded in the mid-nineties (is it because Down In a Hole precedes it?).

The new version of If I Am a Stranger (originally off of Cold Roses) lacks the sense of desperation the original had. It does evoke a sad sort of quiet, like acoustic guitars being gently strum in a distant room on a dark October afternoon. It is one of the high points on the album: but again, it seems a little too, in a word--safe.

The EP ends with a new rendition of Jacksonville's heart-breaking tale of death and the loneliness of survivors, Dear John. This may be the best song on the collection. An acoustic solo adds a new twist to an old beauty. But this new one lacks the ragged heart-wrenching glory of the original.

To sum it up--it seems like Ryan & the Cardinals are playing it a little too safe in the studio. (I recently saw them live twice in the same week and I can assure you that they are in no way in danger of making this mistake on the stage. They are quite possibly the best live band around right now.) Their recordings seem to lack that haphazard brilliance they bring to the stage. Don't be afraid to tear it up! Break a few goddamn guitar strings! But be your wild and wonderfully chaotic selves! And fuck what Lost Highway (or any other record company) thinks. And fuck the critics too! Be Ryan Adams & the Cardinals!