Album Review: Easy Tiger by Ryan Adams

Alt-country stars are partying like it’s 1999! Just as Wilco’s new Sky Blue Sky is free of the guitar wankery that’s defined them this millennium, frontman Jeff Tweedy’s old rival Ryan Adams has reined in those jam-band tendencies for Easy Tiger, his most concise collection since his 2000 debut. Despite an awful lot of math (in one song, ”Two hearts, one of them will break…three words is all it takes”; in another, ”It takes two when it used to take one”), Easy Tiger keeps it simple: beguiling melodies, an ace band, and Adams’ elastic tenor. A-DOWNLOAD THIS: Two .

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Review Summary: Ryan Adams decides to release a solid, cohesive and ultimately consistent record for a change. Although he's only been releasing albums as a solo artist since the beginning of the decade, Ryan Adams has managed to become the posterboy for the alt country movement, as well as one of the most talked-about solo artists in music. His most devoted fans say that he's one of the most prolific artists of all time (Adams has now released 9 official albums, as well as 18 unofficial ones on his website, not to mention the ones he hasn't even released) while his critics and detractors say that he has no concept of quality control and simply releases everything he writes.

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Adams' 10th (if you count Love Is Hell as two) studio album since leaving Whiskeytown for a solo career marked by a prodigious, capricious output, is one of his most consistent. Not consistently great, but consistent. It starts with a full-on country rock ballad - the rousing Goodnight Rose which sounds like it's reviving the Grateful Dead - then moves on to more big country rock ballads, some good (Tears of Gold), some forgettable (Two, featuring harmonies from guest singer Sheryl Crow) and most, by Adams' standards, OK.

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