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Review: Ryan Adam's "29"
By: Brett Winestock - ModernRock.com
January 25th 2006 1:39pm
It takes a certain amount of courage to record and release three full length albums in one year, but Ryan Adams felt he was the man to do just that in 2005. December’s 29 was the third and final album of the year. May’s Cold Roses and September’s Jacksonville City Nights were both released to positive reviews, adding to the enormous pressure surrounding this album. 29 is a concept album, featuring 9 songs, each one detailing a year of Adam’s 20’s.
The album kicks off with the title-track, “29”, a steady tune about drugs, fighting and having nothing to do, which shows a direct influence from the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin”. The second track is “Strawberry Wine”, a slow acoustic song, showcasing Adams’ best lyricism and story-telling on the album. All the running themes of 29 are shown on this song, as Adams sings “and I’m getting old and I gotta break out of it.” “Night Birds” features a beautiful backing piano riff as Adams moans about the hopelessness of life; “Night birds sing you an empty tune in an empty house in an empty room.”
Unfortunately, these three opening tracks are the height of the album. “Blue Sky Blues”, “Starlite Diner” and “Elizabeth, You Were Born to Play That Part” are all just carbon copies of songs we’ve heard earlier on the disc, only with less emotional substance.
“The Sadness” rescues the second-half of the album from complete monotony, as Adams’ voice is shown off like never before on this album, topped off with jangling Spanish guitars. The closer, “Voices”, finally brings Adams that escape he needs and has been trying so hard for the entire album, as he sings “We are never coming back once the signal is fired.”
Although 29 is inconsistent and sloppy in parts, and extremely dreary throughout, it is impossible not to appreciate what that does for the overall feel and message of the album. Adams sings without reservation about the drinking, the death and the despair that was his 20’s. His 20’s were a rough and uneven decade, and this is the album that proves it.
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