I’ll start this, the first full-on album review from the esteemed desk of NDFY, by saying that I’m an unabashed fan of Ryan Adams. I absolutely dig his music and have since Whiskeytown, but I’m also enamored with his trainwreck persona and all of its embarrassing pockets of humorously humorless self-righteousness and egomania. Perhaps it’s my cool kid way of falling victim to celebrity gossip obsession, but the whole thing is just fascinating.

Why put out three records in 2005?

Why the hell not?

Why leave a snotty, bruised-ego message on a reviewer’s voicemail that you have to assume will make its way to public display?

Why the hell not?

Why record anything and everything that falls out of your head and post it on your website, including a seemingly-drunken rap ode to your newfound Internet home base?

Why the hell not?

Adams has stepped so far over the line of the absurd that he’s almost untouchable these days – everything deprecating that could possibly be said about him has been said, every obnoxious, ill-advised social and conventional moray has been laid out on the chopping block, julienned, and set out on display for scrutiny…and he’s still around to put out solid albums and break hearts (and bottles) from the East Village to the Sunset Strip.

Who is this guy, and does this latest album offer any clues?

Easy Tiger (Lost Highway) is the ninth studio effort in Adams’ beyond-prolific solo career, and may be the most consistent yet. Whether or not this is a result of his widely-publicized dalliance with sobriety is debatable, but one thing is clear: the thirteen tunes on Easy Tiger are not going to offend any sensibilities (see 2003’s shaky pair, Love Is Hell and Demolition), but they probably aren’t going to light a fire under any asses either (see solo debut and probable pinnacle, 2000’s iconic Heartbreaker). There’s no driving pop rock perfection a la Rock N Roll’s “Luminol” or “1974,” but there’s a pretty good effort in “Halloween Head.” There’s no achy, acoustic longing as lovely as Heartbreaker’s “Come Pick Me Up,” but there’s the poignant balladry and pretty piano melody of “Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.” Adams has said that though this is billed as a solo album, the process of choosing which tunes to include was a highly democratic one within the confines of his touring group, The Cardinals. Handing the decision-making baton to anyone else when it comes to his art is evidence enough that the mellow, inoffensive Easy Tiger may be ringing in a new era of, gasp…maturity for the boy king of Jacksonville, SC . One can only hope that trading late-night drug binges for late-night hootenannies isn’t the end of the fiery, conflict-driven and self-doubt inspired brilliance that’s flashed here and there throughout Adams’ career.

Is Easy Tiger going to change your perception of modern song craft? Nope. Will it end up in my year-end top albums list? Probably, because even Ryan Adams’ snoozy, self-indulgent songwriting is wildly better than the vast majority of his generation’s output.

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