RYAN ADAMS

Ashes & Fire

[Pax-Am/Capitol]

Ryan Adams recently took a two-year break from releasing new music, an eternity for a prolific singer and songwriter who put out 10 albums in the preceding eight years. Apparently refreshed, Adams returns with 11 songs that are among the best he’s written. That’s saying something given the sheer volume of Adams’ catalog, but he’s rarely equaled the poignant feeling of these tunes. His vivid lyrics evoke images as easily as they summon the colors and abstract shapes of deeply felt emotion—melancholy, mostly, on the wistful “Lucky Now” or the wrenching opener, “Dirty Rain,” but sometimes he’s quietly, powerfully self-possessed, as on closer “I Love You but I Don’t Know What to Say.” Norah Jones and Benmont Tench help flesh out the acoustic-based songs in a style that has become an Adams trademark: almost country, kind of rock ’n’ roll and 100 percent soul. –ED