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Following a string of hit and miss albums since his debut, Heartbreaker back in 2000, Ryan Adams is once again back with a new record and new band. COLD ROSES sees him hitting the highs of the first two albums, blending the heartbroken lyricism of Heartbreaker with the harder guitar edge of Gold in a sound that has echoes of Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Gram Parsons all rolled into one.
As a song like MAGNOLIA MOUNTAIN attests to, this is a record that melds blistering guitar work to ragged country melodies and is a glorious collision of The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Replacements.
For all the criticism levelled at him over the years concerning half baked ideas and rushed albums, Ryan Adams is an artist whose constantly evolving and adapting his sound and whereas more considered bands take three to five years slaving over their next record, hello Oasis and Coldplay, this is someone who does his creating process in public - releasing his demos and forays into rockier territory for all to see.
A song like MEADOWLAKE STREET is as good, if not better than anything you've heard from Adams before. A gently lilting acoustic guitar flitters in the background as a slide guitar is subtly plucked and the vocals ache in a romantic country sting before the band storm in towards the end for a crescendo of rising guitars and drum snares.
Of the low points, and being a double-album you're almost guaranteed a few, BEAUTIFUL SORTA is a dull slog through Status Quo guitar riffing and slurring vocals that try that little bit too hard to imitate a Paul Westerberg like wasted cool. CHERRY LANE is another example of trying too hard, Adams affecting a cliched country wail for the choruses, something that when you've got as natural a charm and charisma as he does seems like something of a waste.
But for every misjudged choice there's always a sublime moment just around the corner and as a song like MOCKINGBIRD proves, this is someone who can mesmerise and delight with rare ease, playing simple songs with a battered acoustic guitar and aching voice and its an emotion HOW DO YOU KEEP LOVE ALIVE repeats with spectacular beauty.
Imagining Led Zeppelin getting together with Kiss in a mid seventies Californian dope haze while the Grateful Dead moderate and Neil Young drops in the odd extended guitar solo, COLD ROSES pits twin harmony lead guitar lines over pastoral acoustic guitar strums and has Adams laying out a vocal performance that's pure Laurel Canyon period country rock.
Achieving what could well be his most coherent and consistent form since the first albums, COLD ROSES, is the album that's likely to see that early faith and potential in Ryan Adams being restored and reclaimed. This is the album he's been threatening to make for years, a record that takes all his influences and throws them together into one glorious package. Whereas, before you could accuse Adams of being a little too in thrall to his obvious heroes and coming across as something of a pale imitation of Springsteen, Gram Parsons and Paul Westerberg, COLD ROSES, actually sees him achieving a sense of his own voice and giving his own spin on things. As the first of three new albums promised this year, it seems Ryan Adams is well and truly back to his prime and that COLD ROSES is a minor classic, bodes extremely well for the year ahead.

David Ryan Adams was born on 5 November 1974 in Jacksonville, North Carolina, USA. Starting out with high school punk band, Patty Duke Syndrome he was fuelled by influences such as the Dead Kennedys and Sonic Youth, before discovering a love for country and folk as he searched for a musical genre which could embody his feelings. Forming Whiskeytown in 1994 with Caitlin Cary, Phil Wandscher, Eric "Skillet' Gilmore and Steve Grothman, they released two albums, Faithless Street and Strangers Almanac, but personnel changes, artistic and personal differences led to their eventual disbandment.
After a period of introspection, Adams began working on his own songs and honing his musicianship by jamming in after-hours bars with friends Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. He teamed up with Emmylou Harris for a tribute album to his hero Gram Parsons, which featured their duet of "Return Of The Grievous Angel'. However, it was the emotional impetus of the split with a girlfriend that led to his first solo album in autumn 2000, the Dylanesque Heartbreaker, recorded in collaboration with Ethan Johns (who Adams had already worked with on the final Whiskeytown album).
Adams' second release, Gold, was a highly ambitious and remarkably consistent work which helped confirm Adams as the alt-country artist with the most potential to break into the mainstream. The album was released on Mercury Records' new alt-country offshoot, Lost Highway. The prolific Adams released his third long-player Demolition (compiled from several different album sessions) in September 2002, and collaborated with singer-songwriter Jesse Malin in hardcore tribute band the Finger. Three further releases followed in late 2003, the long-playing Rock N Roll and the EPs Love Is Hell Pt. 1 and Love Is Hell Pt. 2. The latter pair were compiled from material rejected by Adams' record company as being too bleak to appear on an official follow-up to Gold. The artist's response was to record the hard rocking but largely inconsequential Rock N Roll.

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