LEAVING behind the Americana folk-rock of 2011’s Ashes & Fire, this is Ryan Adams in classic American songwriter mode.
It is almost as if the letter ‘B’ has slipped off the front of his name because a whole heap of songs could belong on the Canadian bellower’s big-boned rock records, from the opening Gimme Something Good to Trouble and I Just Might.
On second thoughts, all this rocking out brings to mind Tom Petty’s peak and Spingsteen at his Bossiest.
Adams’s production is pea-soup thick, the guitars bombastic and retro, the lyrics as broad as an American footballer’s shoulders. Sometimes, these ghosts of golden rock click like fingers, such as on Stay With Me; other times, notably on Shadows, he can be too generic.
Darkness suits him best, settling in a shroud of doubt and isolation on Am I Safe and the resigned finale, Let Go, but My Wrecking Ball would have been better placed there, symbolising a skin-shedding ending and new beginning caught between the world weary and the romantic.
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