In late 2001, Ryan Adams was inadvertently anointed the face-du-jour for "alt-country," an idea scraped off the ink-smeared pages of No Depression and tremulously shot into semi-mainstream consciousness by an over-jubilant, rural-romanticizing press: Adams' "breakthrough" record, Gold, turned out to be a lot more alt-rock than alt-country, and its proper, non-demo follow-up, 2003's spastic Rock N Roll, ditched the pedal steel altogether, embracing, instead, overblown riffs and smarmy vocal mugging. Cold Roses, which follows two weepy acoustic EPs (2003's Love Is Hell Parts One and Two), sees Adams trudging back to his country roots, turning up the twang, curling his cowboy boots into cold, east village pavement, and transforming his frantic yawps into star-fed cries.
Even for Adams' most zealous fans, hunting down new material has never been a particularly pressing concern: The two-disc Cold Roses is one of (a vaguely audacious) three full-length releases planned for 2005 (Jacksonville City Nights is slated to arrive this summer, with 29 expected in the fall), and while Adams has never been an especially sharp judge of his own work, Cold Roses suffers considerably from its double-disc conceit. Overstuffed and vaguely monotonous, the album could be easily whittled down to a single sequence of impressive songs; Instead, it's a meandering, occasionally moving series of mid-tempo laments, some more memorable than others.
Despite ample backing by the Cardinals (guitarists J.P. Bowersock and Cindy Cashdollar, drummer Brad Pemberton, and bassist Catherine Popper; with singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata, formerly of Chicago's Bumpus, taking guest turns on "Cold Roses" and "Let It Ride"), Cold Roses doesn't feel particularly collaborative; followers of Adams' solo work will recognize loads of parallels to Adams' post-Whiskeytown, 2000 solo debut, Heartbreaker (minus the punk throwdowns).
Cold Roses' most palpable reference point may be American Beauty-era Grateful Dead: Excellent opener "Magnolia Mountain" mixes slow, "Box of Rain" melancholy ("If the morning don't come/ Will you lie to me?/ Will you take me to your bed and lay me down?") with Adams' trademark guitar scrapes and sandpapered howls, while "Cold Roses" is packed with giddy guitar noodling and jam-friendly interludes (even Adams' vocals seem deliberately Garcia-infused, straining and paper-thin, careening off into a smoke-filled sunset.) Meanwhile, nearly every bit of electric guitar on Cold Roses sounds as though it was plucked straight from Dick's vault, all wiggly solos and playful licks, unintentional and woozy.
Lead single "Let It Ride" bounces, proudly shuffling through a laundry-list of country requirements: whining steel guitar, longing mentions of Tennessee and Carolina, nods to the Cumberland River and ferryboats, big, lonesome wails. But "Let It Ride" also employs plenty of weird, Ennio Morricone-inspired western guitar whirls, and Adams' coaxing vocals are undeniable, charmingly sincere and innocent: The resulting song is properly engaging, more classic country than alt-anything.
"Cherry Lane" employs honky-tonk yawping and girl-gone words ("The glass/ It hits the floor" is accompanied by requisite glass-shattering sound effects), while the preciously titled "How Do You Keep Love Alive" mopes along, wearied and oddly pretty, half-sung over a languishing piano line. Adams' songwriting proclivities have always flirted with MOR, adult-alternative sappiness, but for the most part, Cold Roses is clever and uncommonly listenable, far less bombastic and contrived than its predecessor. Even lyrically, Adams is modest and cautiously confessional, careful to avoid the cocky caterwauling that invades much of his back catalogue.
Tellingly, Cold Roses is the first Ryan Adams record not to feature a picture of him on the cover; it's increasingly difficult to say exactly when Adams transitioned from bloated media darling to scrappy underdog, but it happened, and he commandeered the passage all by himself, squirming away from the overblown antics of yesteryear and embracing, instead, the staid earnestness of his roots. It's a welcome return.
