Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
Cardinology

David Ryan Adams, 34 years old, releases his ninth full length in not even nine years of solo activity. It makes me smile when I think, I don’t know, of a Peter Gabriel nearing sixty who has released approximately the same number of albums in over thirty years of an honorable career. Shall we talk about tachycardia for one and bradycardia for the other? As in almost all vital manifestations, the right balance would be found roughly halfway: but so it is.

The new album from the former Whiskeytown, just to be clear, moves along the same lines as its predecessor that had greatly thrilled me. This time, I don't feel like saying as much. Don't get me wrong, it's not that the album present here sounds overly bad: however, it sounds tired, formulaic, photocopied. When you have nothing to say, it's better to remain silent, especially for someone who has already said a lot: one waits patiently for inspiration, and if it doesn't come, one waits some more. I don't want to think that Ryan Adams has already run out of batteries and started a slow but inexorable downward spiral, settling into a tedious and glossy routine of old glories, but the path taken seems at least dusty.

In his partial defense, it must be said that the country west-coast genre has never shone for exuberance and euphoria, since the rather meditative and paced rhythm is well-suited to artists who are no longer very young, targeting an equally mature audience. However, if you exceed, you risk slipping into boredom, monotony, and lethargy.

The difference between the previous "Easy Tiger" and the present "Cardinology" can be summed up as the difference between the same film seen in color and seen in black and white: the film is always the same, but do you even compare? Where there was an enchanting "Oh My God Whatever Etc", here a tired "Like Yesterday" is mimicked: the acoustic final track "Stop" aims to echo "I Taught Myself How To Grow Old", but it comes out inevitably worse for wear. Among the twelve tracks in the batch, "Born Into A Light", "Fix It" (with a vague Young smell), "Crossed Out Name", and "Sink Ships" are saved, but honestly, they seem little more than outtakes of the predecessor. Even the rock and roll detour of "Magick" seems thrown in there somewhat randomly to stir the waters.

The fact that Buscadero spoke well of it worries me with a troubling hives, somehow endorsing my theory of our fellow's early greying. I don’t want to believe it, I can't believe it. I repeat, the album cannot be defined as bad, and perhaps those a bit older, who count works by Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, James Taylor, and Eagles in their discotheque, might even find music to their ears: I demand more, much more.