Ryan Adams - Demolition - Vinyl

Demolition is a sort of "best of" compilation comprising 13 previously unreleased demos by Ryan Adams. Recorded at four different studio sessions in Nashville, Los Angeles and Stockholm, with a cast of musicians that includes his road band the Pinkhearts, Gillian Welch , David Rawlings, Ethan Johns, Chris Stills, Bucky Baxter and Greg Leisz, Demolition proves that Adams is still a work-in-progress: brilliant one moment, sloppy the next. When he's good, he's very good: the rousing country-rocker "Hallelujah", the brooding acoustic ballads "Dear Chicago" and "Tomorrow", and the jangly power-pop number "Gimme a Sign" are as fine as anything on Gold . But Adams sometimes lapses into mimicry, as he does on "Nuclear" and "Starting to Hurt", both of which could be outtakes from a U2 album. "Tennessee Sucks", a chronicle of a boredom-filled summer day in Nashville, sounds half-baked, while the closing track, "Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby)", which finds Adams (on synthesizer, guitars, bass and drum machine) droning on like Leonard Cohen , falls in the "failed experiment" category. Despite its bright spots, Demolition ultimately comes off as a mixed bag. --David Hill