"Hi, hello, it's me again," Ryan Adams bellows, granting III/IV-- Adams' 12th LP since 2000-- something of a cheeky start. Adams is the patron saint of the prolific, equally beloved and reviled for his never-ending avalanche of releases, and reintroductions aren't necessary: he's never drifted out of earshot for terribly long. A follow-up to Orion, the limited-run, vinyl-only, sci-fi concept record he released last spring, III/IV was culled from the same batch of tracks that produced 2007's Easy Tiger. The sessions were supposedly inspired by "the 80s, ninjas, cigarettes, sex, and pizza", a kind of holy pentangle for kids born in the mid-70s. And despite all his bluster-- all the songs and breakdowns and books of poems and oddball interviews-- Adams insists his needs are simple, universal: All he wants, he sings, is "Someone that loves me the way I love Star Wars." Well, sure.
III/IV's closest stylistic analogue is probably 2003's bloated Rock N Roll-- there's more dissonance here than twang-- but these songs are controlled, balanced affairs. The Cardinals, who have been backing Adams on and off since 2005, are tight, affable, and fluid. When Adams is at his wildest, they provide a compelling counterpoint, but here, Adams is polite and mostly contained, meaning the entire record has a sheen of professionalism and proficiency that's both welcome (it certainly speaks to Adams' mental and physical health) and a tiny bit cold.
While he's routinely crucified for what plenty see as bumbling over-indulgence (regardless of ego, his compulsion to release records cheapens his entire discography, per the law of averages), Adams is also acutely self-aware. He's not immune to slapping his own wrist, which can make him weirdly sympathetic ("I hate myself a lot," he roars in opener "Breakdown Into the Resolve"). And while his signal-to-noise ratio is permanently skewed, it's almost always worth digging through the filler to find the few indisputably great songs: "Lovely and Blue", "Numbers", "Sewers at the Bottom of the Wishing Well", "Ultraviolet Light", and "P.S." are all worth multiple spins. In general, Adams is at his best when he's at his most personal (a good thing, since he rarely writes about anything beyond his immediate purview), and there are plenty of confessions here, too: Although they weren't engaged until 2009, it's tempting to do an Us Weekly parsing of "Dear Candy", reading it as a frantic apology to his now-wife, Mandy Moore (her "Candy", a professional bit of quasi-provocative teen-pop, was a moderate hit in 1999). Over and over again, Adams is nothing if not honest ("Now I'm bored, you don't impress me, and I find you slightly terrifying," he crows in "Wasteland").
A fervent music fan, Adams' albums often reference his record collection, and he seems happy to pay it homage: III/IV dutifully nods to the Smiths and all their contemporary interpreters, as well as a slew of punk and metal bands, and, on occasion (see the meandering guitar at the end of "Kill the Lights"), the Grateful Dead. Mostly absent are the heartbreakers-- the melancholic country songs that earned Adams accolades at the start of the decade-- but Adams is a more versatile songwriter than he gets credit for, and fans of his earlier records shouldn't scoff at this stuff. But they shouldn't get too excited, either-- III/IV is a fine collection of outtakes, but chances are Adams' magnum opus is still forthcoming.
