Ryan Adams must be the most dauntless and prolific singer-songwriter in modern pop history, racing through albums and genres at such a brisk clip that it seems as if he’s intent on redefining what albums are supposed to be. If most records are novels, Adams’ are magazines, snapshots of his current whims, from new wave to punk to country, depending on the month.
Lately, he’s been on a bit of a roll. His latest, 29, is his third release of the year, following the superb fall release Jacksonville City Nights and last spring’s double-disc Cold Roses. Those albums suggested Adams was on the verge of something great, but 29 is the least of the three releases, a subdued (for him, anyway) and uneventful collection of countrified folk that’s the apex of his long-gestating love of the Grateful Dead.
Those previous two discs were made with his latest backing band, the Cardinals, but here he works without them for a more slender sound constructed around pianos, guitars and his great, quavery falsetto. 29 kicks off with a title track that sounds like an outtake from American Beauty, and things get more enervated from there. Consisting mostly of slow, muted ballads, the disc eventually kicks into gear with the strummy, old-school “Carolina Rain” (next to the spindly spaghetti-western epic “The Sadness”, it might be the best thing here).
While it’s bleak and frequently lovely, 29 lacks the fiery kick of Adams’ best work. It suggests nothing so much as Sheryl Crow’s Wildflower, another somber, mostly acoustic release from a usually muscular artist that signaled an alarming descent into a tasteful and totally hook-free maturity. 29 is the rare Adams album that could actually use more loutishness; a mellow Ryan, it turns out, is not necessarily a more interesting one.
