Bearing the burden of being labeled Gram Parsons reincarnated and the Kurt Cobain of alternative country, Ryan Adams has spent his entire career destroying stigmas placed on him by a music community overly eager to anoint a new savior.
Adams first gained critical clout as lead singer and songwriter of Whiskeytown, a band that over a seven-year course became one of the brightest talents to emerge from the slowly dying, or at least mutating, alt-country genre. During this time Adams gained a reputation for being a musician with enough musical genius to craft a masterpiece like Whiskeytown's "Stranger's Almanac," but without maturity or desire to fully harness his talent.
It was not until last year when Whiskeytown imploded and Adams released his solo debut, "Heartbreaker," that he fully recognized his ability. The album's sparse arrangement of mainly acoustic guitar and occasional modest percussion was a far cry from the electric guitars, mandolins and soothing fiddles of his Whiskeytown work.
A year after his solo debut, Adams finds himself in a completely different place musically, mentally and geographically. The change has brought forth "Gold," an album that thrives with rediscovered musical ambition of the full-band format and outright sincerity in its message.
"Gold" sounds like a trip through '70s FM radio filtered through Adams' nostalgic perspective. The songs' texture, and even the album's 70-minute running time, strive to recall different classic recordings, but Adams creates his songs with such a blatant and earnest homage in mind that songs don't sound recycled, but re-imagined.
As the album's opener "New York, New York" begins, an acoustic guitar rhythm quickly builds pace and is met by congas, recalling "Beggar's Banquet"-era Rolling Stones, but suddenly the song ignites with electric guitars and an organ reminiscent of Bob Dylan's "Basement Tapes."
The Stones' influence dominates several sections of "Gold." "Tina Toledo's Street Walkin' Blues," a seamy tale of a precocious streetwise girl, would fit seamlessly on "Exile on Main Street" with its ragged guitars, pounding percussion and vocal accompaniment of a boisterous diva. On both "Rescue Blues" and "Touch Feel and Lose," Adams borrows from the Stones' "Let It Bleed" by coalescing blues guitar riffs with a gospel choir.
Elsewhere, Adams pays tribute to the Band ("Answering Bell"), the Smiths ("When the Stars Go Blue") and Neil Young ("Harder Now That Its Over"). At times, he walks a thin line between exercising and flaunting his amorphous ability to mimic earlier artists, but it is a line he is careful not to violate.
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Sections of "Gold" emanate with an upbeat and optimistic charge, and while this may be refreshing, part of the problems that arise from "Gold" originate from this transition. Adams has patently perfected the art of crafting a good ballad, as is evident on some high points ("La Cienga Just Smiled" or "Sylvia Plath"), but when he ventures elsewhere he has the tendency to fall into clich
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