Would the real Ryan Adams please show yourself? Alt.country hero, Dylan mime, classic rock revivalist, and now raging rocker-Adams obviously has a large record collection, but his blinding talent is getting marginalized by his schizoid shapeshifting. The new record is a messy, raw outing that ultimately doesn’t live up to the rock savior standards critics have been holding him too.
It’s not a bad record, it’s just that it comes off as hurried and slightly forced. Adams opens the record singing “Let me sing a song for you that’s never been sung before.” Not true. Adams is following a well-traveled guitar rock formula throughout, each song baring a distinct bare-breasted exposure of its influences. He runs the gamut of rock styles from the glam rock preenning of “1974” to the chugging prog rock of “Luminol,” but it’s his take on ’80s era grandiose U2 rock with the soaring falsetto of “So Alive” that is most successful.
Adams doesn’t give his ragged, scream-weary throat a rest until the fourth track, where Ryan is actually found singing the album’s most charming melody. Unfortunately, lazy lines like “It’s all a bunch of shit” and “It’s totally fucked” sabotage the integrity of the tune. Echoes of his former band Whiskeytown can be heard on the melancholic “Burning Photographs” where Adams sighs “I used to be sad, now I’m just bored with you.” He conjures Morrissey on the affecting pity song “Anybody Wanna Take Me Home” while deadpanning “I’m in the twilight of my youth…not that I’m going to remember.” It’s brilliant one-liners such as these that make Adams so frustrating. The breakout all-time classic record is still hiding somewhere in the cluttered attic of Adams’ musical mind.
Before recording LloR N kcoR, Adams actually recorded another record that was supposed to be his follow-up to the critically acclaimed Gold. Lost Highway decided to shelve the record, seemingly because of its lack of commercial viability. Love Is Hell Pt. 1 comprises half of that output, and from the start it’s obvious why the record company kept it under wraps. This is classic mope rock, songs to listen to while rolling around in one’s own misery.
Half the EP was recorded in New York, and the other half in New Orleans. The New York session is bleak and infused with forgettable memories. The New Orleans sessions are an improvement, but still may raise the suicide rate. Local funk veteran Jon Cleary plays keyboards on three of the tracks, but his syncopated mastery is underutilized. It begs the question—Why record in New Orleans if you’re going to make a stark, morbid album? This is a city where the funerals are street party celebrations.
That said, “World War 24” and “Avalanche” are pretty, mid-tempo ballads with effective melodies that stack up well against his previous work. Curiously enough, the best track from both records comes on an elegant cover of Oasis’ “Wonderwall,” where Adams creates an interpretation that easily surpasses the original. It’s telling that the best song from both albums is a cover. He’s better than this.
