American singer / songwriter Ryan Adams made his debut in 2000 with the now classic album Heartbreaker, a country-tinted record full of desperate songs about lost love. He then made fans of this record go wild with an increasingly inconsistent oeuvre of various albums, from the pop record Gold to the pure rock album Rock N Roll. But for those it was not too late, Cold Roses appeared in early 2005,
… on which Adams, aided by the semi-acoustic quartet The Cardinals, seemed to have recovered his old form. And also on the successor to Jacksonville City Nights, Adams shows himself to be the skilled songwriter of yesteryear. In addition to loosely played country rock, where it never really gets cheerful, there are a number of deep-digging ballads, in which Adams' voice colors beautifully with that of a background singer bassist and keyboardist Catherine Popper. The bonus track Always On My Mind (known from Willie Nelson), enriched with sweet strings, goes way over the top, but then we already have an intense and atmospheric album behind us. (MR)more
