4/5
After Adams’ break from music in 2009 due to hearing and balance issues, the announcement of a new record this year did not come without huge excitement. And on listening to the album, there was not an ounce of disappointment. Ashes & Fire is Adams’ saving grace from the last few records and certainly a break from his attempt at what he called “sci-fi metal”. With this record, it feels like his work has come full circle; Ashes & Fire behaves as though it evolved from his first record - 2000’s Heartbreaker, but this time with a settled, content sensibility about Adams. He finally seems secure and assured. The album pulses with confidence that wasn’t there before, without losing the tenderness and, at times, vulnerability. Ashes & Fire really does appear to carry on where Heartbreaker left off, resolving what Adams left unsettled with his shift to a more pop sound for his second album Gold.
This album gives exactly what
one wants from an alternative country album. The emotion in the songs teeter
delicately between the melancholic and
the content. Within each song, the voice carries many subtleties and is
the strongest, most consistent it has ever been. Lyrically, the record is more
mature than before, though it can have its clichéd moments; Come Home being a
good example of this as he proclaims he will “be here for you standing by your
side”.
The production on the record is
flawlessly fluid. Adams leads while at the same time still very much remaining
part of the band. The instruments and melodies are intertwined: guitars flow
together and organs pour out through the mix while Adams holds it all in place.
Yet, the atmosphere is, at the same time, serene and isolated, as the reverb
creates plenty of empty space between the instruments. Songs like Do I Wait?
And Save Me exploit this in particular and are almost hymnal - I could only
describe the album as whiskey-gospel music. It is tenderly defiant,
especially in the closing track, I Love You But I Don’t Know What To Say, as he
calmly states “we belong here”.
Though most of the albums ambience
stays statically sacred from the opening track Dirty Rain, there are some
sparks of freshness. There are moments of Guthrie-like folk melodies over
contemporary country music like in Lucky Now or Kindness, with its pop chorus, and also Dylanesque
wailing such as in the title track. Ashes & Fire is an extremely pleasing
record, I found myself listening right the way through again and again. And
though it may not be the alt. country album of the year, it is most certainly a
return to form for Adams. Definitely worth a listen.
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