ARTIST: Ryan Adams
TITLE: Jacksonville City Nights
LABEL: Lost Highway
GENRE: Country
TIME: 51:10 min
SIZE: 71,10 MB
RIP DATE: Dec-29-2005
RELEASE DATE: Sep-27-2005
WEBSITE: n/a

Track List:

01. A Kiss Before I Go                         02:06
02. The End                                    03:45
03. Hard Way To Fall                           04:06
04. Dear John                                  04:37
05. The Hardest Part                           02:53
06. Games                                      02:12
07. Silver Bullets                             02:57
08. Peaceful Valley                            03:43
09. September                                  02:31
10. My Heart Is Broken                         02:14
11. Trains                                     04:09
12. Pa                                         03:52
13. Withering Heights                          02:54
14. Don't Fail Me Now                          04:30
15. Always On My Mind                          04:41

Release Notes:

Contains an additional track... Enjoy

Ever since the big, splashy Gold failed to make Ryan
Adams an all-conquering superstar -- it bolstered
his reputation as a rock critic darling, but never
had the sales to match the press -- he's retreated
to genre exercises, beginning with the sleek modern
rock of 2003's Rock N Roll and its moody alt-rock
counterpart, Love Is Hell, carrying through to his
Neil Young/Grateful Dead pastiche on his spring 2005
double album, Cold Roses, and now its autumn sequel,
Jacksonville City Nights. Arriving a little over
four months after Cold Roses as the second
installment of a planned trilogy of 2005 releases,
Jacksonville City Nights -- which at one point was
going to be called the less-evocative but
calendar-specific September -- is Adams'
straight-up, straight-ahead country album, a lean
46-minute collection of 14 songs designed for
late-night drinking. While the terrific cover art
deliberately echoes classic '60s country LPs, the
sound of the album isn't quite as honky tonk as that
suggests, thanks to a handful of brooding numbers
like "September" that are too introspective,
lyric-centered, and light on melody to truly qualify
as classicist country. These are the weakest moments
here, but they're also the exception to the rule,
since most of the songs here represent a number of
classic country archetypes, from the opening pair of
barroom anthems, "A Kiss Before I Go" and "The End,"
to his "Dear John" duet with Norah Jones or the
light hillbilly swagger of the galloping "Trains"
and how "My Heart Is Broken" is sweetened by just
enough swings to give it a candy coating but not
enough to turn it into countrypolitan schmaltz. As
good as these cuts sound, it's still hard not to
shake the suspicion that Ryan Adams is primarily a
pastiche artist, since it's not only easy to spot
influences throughout the album, but because the
atmosphere of the record makes more of an impression
than the individual songs. That said, Jacksonville
City Nights still ranks as one of Adams' stronger
albums, not just because he's returning to his
rootsy roots -- after all, this isn't alt-country,
this is pure country -- but because it maintains a
consistent mood, is tightly edited and well
sequenced, and thanks to the Cardinals, has the easy
assurance of Cold Roses, which is preferable to the
somewhat desperate feel of the records immediately
following Heartbreaker. It may not all add up to a
major statement, which is something Gold and Rock N
Roll aspired to be, but it surely makes for a more
likeable and ultimately more listenable album.