by Matt Ashare
Ryan Adams has never been a particular good source for accurate information regarding Ryan Adams — at least, not unless you're really good at reading between the proverbial lines. So when the former Whiskeytown frontman began touting III/IV as a "double-album concept rock opera about the ’80s," prior to its mid-December release on his own Pax Am label (also the home of the vinyl-only sci-fi metal disc Orion, which became available by mail-order in early November), there was good reason to be skeptical. The product of six months spent sequestered at New York's Electric Ladyland studio with the Cardinals (drummer Brad Pemberton, bassist Catherine Popper, guitarist Neal Casal, and multi-instrumentalist Jamie Candiloro) in 2007, the disc collects 21 tracks that apparently didn't fit the alt-country bent of Easy Tiger, his second to last for Lost Highway, a label he famously feuded with over the number of albums he wanted to release. (In 2005, there were three, one solo and two with the Cardinals: oddly enough, although the Cardinals were present for the Easy Tiger sessions, it doesn't bear their name. All clear?)Actually, assuming Easy Tiger was essentially I, it's not at all clear why Adams skipped over II to get to III and IV. But, then, he's always enjoyed being a "difficult" artist and, since Adams has referred to the new pair of discs as "Cardinology III and IV," perhaps they're meant as a follow-up to 2008's Cardinology, which, come to think of it, doesn't actually clear anything up. Even "Cardinals III/IV," which is how Wikipedia has it listed, confuses matters because Easy Tiger was released as a Ryan Adams solo album. Oh well.
Fortunately, there doesn't appear to be much of a rock-opera concept behind III/IV — it's, as you might have already guessed, simply the best of what was left when the Cardinals closed up shop after half a year at Electric Ladyland. And that's not a bad thing at all. The disc opens in the same rockist vein of 2003's aptly titled Rock N Roll, with Adams alluding his struggles with addiction ("I get my dreams confused with wishes and bad ideas") and rehab ("So you probably heard I went away/Where do we start?) against solidly churning guitars coalesce into respectably anthemic hook on "Breakdown Into the Resolve." Elsewhere, Adams puts his crooner cap on for a swing through the organ-laced "Dear Candy," veers into Killers territory with the bold synth-rock of "Users," returns to the familiar folky alt-rock ground of the plaintive and sweet "Death and Rats," has a little arena rock fun on the just-short-of-metallic first few minutes of the 7-plus "Kill the Lights" before he and the Cardinals close things out with their best Allman Brothers imitation. It's a tribute to Adams' penchant for bad choices that he neglected to include the winning romantic ballad "Typecast," a duet with Nora Jones, on Easy Tiger. As Adams himself admits it in "Users," as hard as he may "try to be good," he's forever haunted by "bad ideas."
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