Uniformity isn\u2019t really Ryan Adams\u2019s thing.\u00a0 One year he\u2019s an alt-country pioneer (see Cold Roses <\/i>or his Whiskeytown works of the \u201890s), the next he\u2019s dabbling in full-blown rock \u2018n\u2019 roll (see his creatively titled Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll<\/i> album), and the next he abandons his usual formulas for metal rock.\u00a0 When you\u2019ve torn the cellophane off of a number of Adams albums, you learn to expect the unexpected.<\/p>\n
Somewhere in the middle of all those transformations, Adams felt the urge to write about a subject that we all know just a little too well.\u00a0 Love Is Hell<\/i> is fascinating to me in that it so perfectly describes the meaning behind the album\u2019s title.\u00a0 There\u2019s a very salient somber quality on most of the tracks, but the music is often subtly positive and quite beautiful.\u00a0 The two polar opposite qualities echo each other extremely well, confirming in a way that while love sometimes sucks (a lot), none of us is capable of living without its beauty.<\/p>\n
Be forewarned, if you\u2019re teetering on the edge of plummeting into lovesick depression, this album most definitely is not for you.\u00a0 Or at the very least, tune out the lyrics, or you\u2019ll be subjected to such dejected, empty-hearted verses as \u201cThe people dancing in the corner, they seem happy, but I am sad \/ I am still dancing in the coma of the drinks I just had\u201d and \u201c[She] threw her wedding ring in the sewer \/ And damned them all to hell.\u201d\u00a0 How uplifting!<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a total downer, though.\u00a0 It took several listens for me to discover it, but \u201cPlease Do Not Let Me Go\u201d quietly emerges from the pack as a faintly sugary sweet track, ending with a profound, pleading conclusion:\u00a0 \u201cTrue love ain\u2019t that hard to find \/ Not that either one of us will ever know \/ Would you lay here for a while? \/ Please do not let me go.\u201d\u00a0 Restrained guitar strumming then evolves into an utterly beautiful bare-bones melody on piano, accompanied by reverberating steel guitar.\u00a0 Adams\u2019s composition makes it sound like the two instruments were born for each other.<\/p>\n
In fact, those simple, remarkable instrumental phrases are present on so many of the album\u2019s tracks.\u00a0 The final minute of \u201cAfraid Not Scared\u201d and \u201cWorld War 24\u201d exemplify this, but the most ingenious example lies in \u201cThe Shadowlands.\u201d\u00a0 A solo, three-note piano motif accompanies Adams\u2019s near-falsetto vocals until gradually adding percussion, lead and rhythm guitar, and even violin, crescendoing into a two-minute jam that is so lovely that it has no business being on an album called Love Is Hell<\/i>.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s Adams\u2019s reinvention of the oft-covered hit, \u201cWonderwall,\u201d with a delicately emotional quality that simply wasn\u2019t there when Oasis originally recorded it.<\/p>\n
Ryan Adams is nothing if not prolific, effortlessly cranking out album after album, including three in 2005 alone.\u00a0 As a result, however, many of his albums tend to become diluted and slightly repetitive, and Love Is Hell<\/i> follows this pattern.\u00a0 Standing alone, each track has its own specific brilliance, but the crawling pace of the latter half of the album causes it to sputter by the 50-minute mark or so.<\/p>\n
But, like I said, when you put individual tracks under the microscope, it\u2019s hard to find anything but simple, solid songwriting, even with such a tired, overdone theme as hopeless heartbreak.\u00a0 For all his idiosyncrasies, Ryan Adams sure makes it look easy sometimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":30653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8705],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-42324","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ryan-adams","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42324"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42324"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}