Ryan Adams: "Lucky Now"

Ryan Adams has packed a lot into his twenty-year career. Starting out as a punk-loving teenager in Jacksonville, NC, he eventually graduated to rootsy country with Whiskeytown, whose collapse precipitated his frenetic, prolific solo career. At times inspired and at others a drunken mess (with stints of legendary onstage belligerence following Gold [2001] and Rock N Roll [2003]), over the years Adams has turned off almost as many fans as he’s won. But after a period of relative stability (and good, solid songwriting) with the Cardinals, Adams has been fairly quiet, for him, the past few years. He married actress/former pop star Mandy Moore, and his only releases were the tossed-off, jokey metal album Orion and the Cardinals album III/IV , recorded in 2007. It’s been awhile since his last public meltdown, and he’s pulled back on his career strategy of releasing every doodle, hiccup, and outtake. And on “Lucky Now,” his first new material in over a year, he seems eager to proclaim himself a new man, realizing all the while that he can never really be.

“Lucky Now,” from the upcoming Ashes and Fire, is a return to the grounded, folk-country songwriting Adams employed to perfection on his first and best solo work, Heartbreaker (2000). Adams isn’t shy about promoting the story of his maturation, his settling down, as he begins by asking, “I don’t remember—were we young and wild?” From there he takes it to the places he knows best: icy winter landscapes, wordless walks down dim city streets. As proud as he seems to declare he’s changed his ways, there’s a hint of melancholy rooted in the inevitability of repeating past mistakes. “Are we really who we used to be?”, he asks; “Am I really who I was?” The beauty of “Lucky Now” comes in the form of restraint. Backed by soft guitar, Adams’s voice sounds smooth and nuanced, far from the whiskey-singed days of Demolition (2002) and Love is Hell (2004). Whether he’ll be truly content clipping coupons with Mandy Moore remains to be seen, but it’s nice to have Ryan Adams back, this time letting the music take center stage.