Ryan Adams | Ashes & Fire

PAX-AM/Capitol (2011)

By MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER | October 4, 2011

3.5 Stars

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.

Topics: CD Reviews , Music, Ryan Adams, Ryan Adams, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER

REX BROWN DELIVERS THE WORD ON PANTERA | March 20, 2013
“No holds barred” and “warts and all” are typical qualifiers when it comes to rock-and-roll memoirs, but rarely do they fulfill the promise.

PHOTOS: DEVOTCHKA AT THE HOUSE OF BLUES | March 13, 2013
DeVotchKa performs live at the House of Blues on March 9, 2013.

WHAT'S F'N NEXT? ALT-J | February 26, 2013
Bands that have taken home the United Kingdom's Mercury Prize in the past have included Suede, Pulp, Primal Scream, and Arctic Monkeys.

SHOUT OUT LOUDS | OPTICA | February 26, 2013
Stockholm's Shout Out Louds have always been a curious but consistent act.

WHAT'S F'N NEXT? CAVEMAN | February 20, 2013
Most people are probably sick to death of Brooklyn being a hipster's paradise where dinks with moustaches tatted on their fingers drive fixed-gear bikes to Williamsburg bars to pay $6.50 for a can of PBR.