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Ryan Adams - Cardinology
| Ew |
| Ryan Adams and his backing band The Cardinals have got their sound down to a science, all right: Cardinology, as embodied by their fourth album in as many years, is a precisely calibrated method of creating cool, reflective pools of vocal harmonies and pedal steel, accented from time to time by fiery electric-guitar licks. So what if Adams has left behind (at least for now) the rebellious image and stylistic curveballs that marked his earlier years? He's allowed his songwriting to settle into a comfortable pattern as he's matured, but that hasn't made it any less vital. A–...full text |
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| Rollingstone |
| Ryan Adams' drug problems and public tantrums have often overshadowed his music. But Cardinology may put an end to that. His first release in a year — notable for a guy who put out three (albeit spotty) full-lengths in 2005 — it's the record he has spent the past few years promising but never quite delivering. Drunk on melody, high on musical history, but all his own, the record throbs with great playing and singing, and thrums with hope without pimping easy platitudes. It's one of the best things he's ever done....full text |
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| Allmusic |
| Sobriety agrees with Ryan Adams, giving him the one thing he's always lacked: focus. Easy Tiger suggested as much, with its tight, clean lines supported its rehab-celebrating publicity, but its 2008 sequel Cardinology reveals that this straight, narrow path was no new detour for Adams but rather the main road. It's the first time in his solo career that Adams has tread the same trail for two albums in a row, which only confirms the suspicion that now that Adams is sober, he's getting down to the business of being the troubadour he's always aspired to be, assisted by a band so sympathetic to his style that he's named his album after them. In a certain sense, Cardinology does play as a showcase for everything that Ryan Adams & the Cardinals can do: it's rooted in Deadsy country-rock but frequently strays into '80s alt rock territory, whether it's the sighing, romantic "Cobwebs" or how "Magick" echoes like prime U2. The Cardinals shift moods with ease but Cardinology isn't quite a showcase for how the band plays - it's too intimate, too concentrated on the songs, to be a record about the group themselves, nor is it about Adams' range, as earlier records like Gold were. This is a very simple, classicist singer/songwriter album where the pleasure is within the songs themselves, how "Born Into a Light' unfolds with understated grace, how "Let Us Down Easy" glides into its call and response chorus, how "Natural Ghost" has a comforting spectral quality, how "Evergreen" skips delicately, how the details in "Sink Ships" spill out to its loping beat. These are modest pleasures but these days Ryan Adams is all about careful measured craft instead of big statements, a trade-off that makes his albums more predictable but also more satisfying as Cardinology quietly proves....full text |
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