Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Adams, Ryan
Label: Virgin EMI Records
Release: 2017
Length: 42:52
Rating: 4/5
Ryan Adams is an American singer-songwriter and, more broadly, also a producer and painter. An all-in-one artist, basically. He’s already got fifteen studio albums under his belt, and this year he’s stacked another one on top, »Prisoner«. A while back the guy kicked up quite a bit of dust and angered and confronted plenty of fans when he re-recorded pop musician Taylor Swift’s album »1989«. Well, in recent years his life has been marked by the shipwreck of his relationship with his partner, singer and actress Mandy Moore, which on the flip side gave him the inspiration to create »Prisoner«.
Every single track on this new album relates to snapshots of Adams’s life from the time he spent with Mandy Moore. The fear that Adams went totally sour after his fling with Taylor Swift’s music is unfounded, and »Prisoner« takes him back to the confessional ground of his recent albums, the place where he landed with, say, »Ryan Adams« (2014) and, before it, »Ashes And Fire« (2011). If I’m being a bit snarky, maybe Mandy left him precisely because of the Taylor Swift flirtation? The devil only knows, but the backstory doesn’t really matter anymore anyway.
With »Prisoner« Adams returns to the musical environment where he’s always handled himself most deftly and felt most at home. There’s certainly a general country flavor on this album too, but the decibel level goes up, as the opening rock-heavy guitar phrase in Do You Still Love Me? already announces. The very next one, the title track, comes close in production and compositional structure to something that could have been born in Bruce Springsteen’s backyard.
The album shifts through moods. Pain, a tangle of madness, anger, even attempts at forgiveness. It works like a story that’s complete in itself, yet speaks to the listener through individual, interconnected acts. Ryan is back in the saddle and rides with total confidence as he moves through wellsprings of the most varied passions and emotions, holds on to a distinct sensitivity, adds a touch of the real to his poetics; his heart doesn’t fail him this time either.
An exceptionally beautiful, compact, all-round competent singer-songwriter achievement with an alternative-rock flavor, skillfully produced, with prominent, ever-lively, distinctive »jangle« guitar sounds. It comes across light, relaxed, very musical, even though Ryan stepped into it with a split heart. The album has a great virtue in its artistic consistency, something few other Adams records since »Heartbreaker« can boast of. The compositions are also varied in terms of ideas, while Adams manages to keep up a solid level of high-quality packaging for the product. In other words, the songs don’t swing up and down in quality. They’re also arranged in a sequence that grabs superbly, since, as mentioned, these are individual acts that coexist in correlation and are tied to one another by real life. Adams has also deftly enriched the arrangements with harmonica, saxophone and piano.
That this is a gorgeous, deeply felt piece of work is also announced by the fragility in the blending of the musical elements that build the sonic picture in which Adams’s vocal confession confidently dwells, since his poetry, in all its truthfulness and down-to-earth realism, is especially »brutal« this time. It’s precisely the occasional tenderness and softness with which Adams approaches the poetry, along with the delicate pastels of the instrumental backing, that boost this confessional power by contrast. In short. A sad and melancholy Ryan this time, at moments completely »lost«, then found again. Swimming in a hurricane-like wellspring of emotional trials and realizations. An album that simply rolls on and on. And that’s Ryan’s basic aim, too. To lead the listener through his uniquely characterful musical world. And in that respect »Prisoner« is yet another very bold little stone in the discography of this prolific American singer-songwriter.
Ryan Adams – “Prisoner” (full album):
Lineup
Ryan Adams – vocals, bass guitar, guitar
Jason Boesel – drums
Daniel Clarke – Hammond organ
Charlie Stavish – bass guitar
Joe Sublett – saxophone
Mike Viola – guitar
Johnny T. Yerington – drums, percussion
Production
Ryan Adams
Track list
1. Do You Still Love Me?
2. Prisoner
3. Doomsday
4. Haunted House
5. Shiver And Shake
6. To Be With You
7. Anything I Say To You Now
8. Breakdown
9. Outbound Train
10. Broken Anyway
11. Tightrope
12. We Dissapear
