Here's my review of the new Ryan Adams CD. It will be in the Creative Loafing that hits newsstands July 18.

Easy Tiger

RYAN ADAMS

Lost Highway

One of the most prolific songwriters of his generation, alt-country golden boy Ryan Adams has been a source of frustration for many fans. Come on, dude, who wants to buy three bloated albums by anyone in the same year? And then there were those silly forays into hip-hop posted on your website. What was up with that?

Adams established himself as the next Neil Young with his evocative 2000 solo debut Heartbreaker. And then he betrayed his talent by releasing what seemed to be every scrap of material that popped into his head. (Come to think of it, Young has pulled similar stunts over the years.)

Now, finally, a deserving follow-up to Heartbreaker. After years of stretching himself too thin, Adams has settled down and made a gorgeous, filler-free, country-rock album that ranks closely with sublime fare such as After the Gold Rush.

Whether rocking out or emoting over weeping pedal steel, Easy Tiger crackles with poignancy from start to finish. Women ease in and out of the singer’s life, leaving their impression, leaving him with heartache and songs. A sadness courses through much of the material, but rays of hope peek out of the gray skies before the scene gets too bleak. “Let go of the worry,” Adams sings. “There’s so much nobody understands.”

The CD clocks in at less than 40 minutes, and that’s just fine. Like those classic country-rock albums of the late 1960s and early 1970s, one can actually listen to Easy Tiger in its entirety without ever once feeling the need to hit the skip button. Pressed for standout tracks, I’ll go with the twangy album opener “Goodnight Rose” (which is quoted above), the pop beauty “Two Hearts” and “Halloweenhead,” a tortured, crushing rocker about learning the hard way how to just say no.

4 stars (out of 5)

This article appears in Jul 11-17, 2007.