Ryan Adams Easy Tiger by: Tom Perry Mon:16-Jul-07 Label: Lost Highway Year: 2007 WB rating 70 out of 100

The most baffling thing about Ryan Adams is his card-carrying rock credibility. He’s one of those rare musicians who seem to have perfectly straddled the fence between blues, country and rock so comfortably. And whilst he has occasionally been torn apart by critics, there aren’t many out there who don’t at least give the man some respect.

Admittedly there’s the back-stories that come together to create the ‘Ryan Adams Inc’ mystique that truly builds this respectable persona. There’s the ‘troubled genius’ tag; the ‘hardest working man in rock and roll’ by-line (he’s pumped out nine solid studio albums in seven years); his professional relationships (names like Gillian Welch, Adam Duritz and Emmylou Harris join him on his records, and Bono and The Corrs have covered his tunes) and not so professional pairings (his relationship with indie-cinema darling Parker Posey). It all comes together to establish Adams as a regular talking point.

But are we interested in Adams as a celebrity or as a musician? Either way, when trying to define his sound, he’s a not an easy man to pigeonhole. Is he a happy-go-lucky country singer? Is he a bluesman fuelled by angry punk attitude? Or is he a melancholy folk singer? It’s hard to tell. Whatever the answer, he’s well and truly brought all three of these personas to the studio for Easy Tiger, and it’s the mix of these that make this record a great listen.

Whilst Tiger doesn’t actively play to the bitter, broken-hearted Adams that has won him the legions, it’s an album that has been lovingly produced, with a clear focus on allowing his more relaxed persona to shine through. It’s not overly challenging – he doesn’t pull out too many tricks, nor strays miles away from the sound of his previous work - but it does veer through the diverse nature of his back catalogue.

Opening track ‘Goodnight Rose’ feels oddly enough like a traditional closing track. Whilst there’s the obvious literal response to the track title ‘Goodbye’, it’s the swing-filled positivity that adds to the general vibe that Adams is trying to reverse what he’s achieved so fruitfully on previous albums: to make listeners genuinely concerned for his mental wellbeing.

The album’s obvious hook-filled single, ‘Halloweenhead’, is pure rock-by-numbers - which is likely to raise the eyebrows of those who don’t dig Adams in pop mood. But it is put together with such an infectious sense of pisstaking enjoyment that it’s hard not to go along with the joke. To hear Adams enthusiastically explain his “Halloweenhead” as being his “head full of tricks and treats” before wildly welcoming a “Guitar solo!” mid-song, there’s little doubt for the listener that he’s placed his tongue firmly in cheek during the recording of this one. Admittedly the song does stand out like dogs bollocks as an odd fit amongst the rest of Easy Tiger, but that doesn’t mean it fails as a tune. Far from it – it works brilliantly. It just makes Adams sound like Better than Ezra or Collective Soul, circa 1995.

‘The Sun Also Sets’ goes for a fun cabaret style – as if a tipsy Adams is playing to a bar full of tired ex-pats in a bar in Hong Kong. And it sounds sensational. He comes across as part understanding and wise, and part as a man that’s been fairly burnt by life in general. But for those who enjoy Adams the most when he wears his stripped-back melancholy folk persona, ‘Oh My God, Whatever, etc’, ‘Off Broadway’, ‘These Girls’ and ‘I Taught Myself How to Grow Old’ will meet expectations perfectly.

Second track ‘Nobody Listens to Silence’ is for mine, however, the standout track on the album. It works because it pushes Adams into slightly more cheeky territory than we’ve heard before -- he sounds like a New York beatnik reeling off sleazy break up stories of ex-girlfriends. The lyrics pour out so quickly like well-rehearsed poetry that it almost feels as if we’re pushing into – believe it – hip-hop territory here.

Easy Tiger is by no means a classic, however. Some of the bluegrass/country efforts do sound a little like the sort of stuff that didn’t quite make the cut for the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. But all up, what we’ve got here from Ryan Adams is nonetheless a warm, fun and relatively relaxed album that plays to the man’s strengths as an angry punk/bitter bluesman/melancholic folk muso.