Ryan Adams
Demolition

Distributed by
Lost Highway

• Year: 2002
• Rating: 9/10
• Cat. No: 170 333-2

Track listing:

1. Nuclear
2. Hallelujah
3. You Will Always Be The Same
4. Desire
5. Cry On Demand
6. Starting To Hurt
7. She Wants To Play Hearts
8. Tennessee Sucks
9. Dear Chicago
10. Gimme A Sign
11. Tomorrow
12. Chin Up, Cheer Up
13. Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby)

In these times, it's hard enough to find a prolific artist within the rock mainstream, let alone one who is as disgustingly talented as Ryan Adams happens to be. This, his third album following 2000's Heartbreaker and last year's maginificent transatlantic breakthrough Gold, is the result of several different recording sessions, each of which in their entireity were once mooted by Adams as the basis for individual albums.

So, Demolition has appeared as a kind of compromise to the modern industry demands, a compilation of the best bits, and as such its reception has been the type usually afforded to stopgap odds'n'ends collections. While there's no avoiding or denying the origin of these 13 chosen songs, and their place in a rather ambitious plan to issue a trio of full-length releases within 12 months, such an approach does Demolition a huge disservice.

There's nothing unfinished, throwaway or substandard about any of the tracks, far from it. The accomplished sheen of rockers Nuclear, Hallelujah and Gimme A Sign rubs sholders once again with the gentler side to Adams... this time, the showstoppers are She Wants To Play Hearts, You Will Always Be The Same and Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby), classic alt.rock ballads made special by that hardly unique yet extremely effective drawl.

If he sounds like a man treading musical and lyrical water on occasion (and, admittedly, the themes and motifs used here are never far from those on Gold), then for the time being at least, it's doing him no harm. Demolition is almost audibly effortless in its brilliance.

Stopgap or not, Adams is clearly on top of his game to such an extent that the competition must be wondering what they can do to keep up.

Review copyright © Liam Carey, 2002.