Cardinology

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Customer reviews

review by: essdog date: 2009-03-24 rating:
Adams' most soulful work to date!
Cardinology is a strange album. On first listen I was distictly unimpressed but then, like many of Ryan Adams best creations, the songs slowly start to lodge in your brain and before long your reaching for the repeat button! br / br /Without doubt this is his most soulful record to date. Songs like Fix It and Like Yesterday have a distinct groove to them. Adams vocal delivery is also of note and used to great effectiveness on songs like Sink Ships, Crossed Out Name (which is not unlike a stripped down Killers!) and Let Us Down Easy (I love the line "every season we spend apart, feels like a thousand to my heart, and in my soul"). Cobwebs would have not been out of place on the excellent Love Is Hell and once again is made by a great vocal melody. br / br /Despite some slight strays into new territory, Adams can still pen a great piano ballad and the haunting Stop builds to a crescendo of beautiful gushing strings. The only slightly out of place song (much like Halloweenhead on Easy Tiger) is Magick, a plodding college rock song, but even this proves catchy after a few listens. br / br /Overall, not quite worthy of a full 5 stars but certainly a good 4 and a half and a real return to form after the somewhat patchy Easy Tiger. Cardinology has a few surprises up its sleeve and is all the more listenable for it.

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review by: young Danny date: 2009-02-23 rating:
Signs of life again....
This is the boy wonder's most consistent effort for some time and it is clear that the esteeemed backing band the Cardinals are thouroughbreds in their musicianship. Ryan's lyrics and delivery still have the capacity to evocate, this being best illustrated here on 'Natural Ghost', 'Fix It' and the poignant and rather gorgeous 'Crossed Out Name'. But these songs seem to lack definition from each other; where is the diversity and wealth of musical ideas (and indeed classic songs) that is to be found on the landmark Gold? The only song here that really represents a distinguishable tempo change is the rather embarrasing cod rock circa 1982 that is ' Magick'. Nevertheless, this does represent the beginnings of a return to form following the truly uninspired Easy Tiger and confirms to doubting fans that in stumbling around in the dark he has relocated an ounce or two of his unquestioned songwriting talent. It is to be hoped that Ryan will now embrace the content of quality not quantity in his future releases because there is no doubt that his best songs have the capacity to touch a nerve with discerning music followers. br / br / Young Danny, York

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review by: date: 2009-02-07 rating:
GOOD, BUT NOT HIS BEST
My husband, a long-time devoted Ryan Adams fan, said he likes this CD, though it's not one of Adams' best.

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review by: date: 2009-01-27 rating:
Ryan Adams gets an editor. Results not as predicted.
Although he has retained his image as a wilful, ego-driven contrarian, Ryan Adams may be listening to his critics after all. For all the flak he has taken for his shameless genre-hopping and bad boy persona, probably the biggest stick used to beat him is that he 'lacks an internal editor'. That his prolific output is that of an artist unable to discriminatingly judge his own work. br / br /Previous album Easy Tiger, and now Cardinology, could be a direct answer to that criticism. They are much leaner, with fewer, shorter songs, more consistent in tone and modest in ambition,(interviews with Adams suggest this is the influence of the other Cardinals). Theoretically, this should have resulted in the critical motherlode for Adams, but reviews remain divided. For the first time though, I can understand that mixed feeling. This is the first RA album I don't find wholly satisfying. br / br /The first half is generally strong. Opener Born Into A Light has a pleasing, rootsy vibe, while Go Easy plays to traditional Cardinals strengths of tight instrumental interplay and vocal harmonies. Fix it is the albums most interesting, and possibly best cut, as well as the only remanant of the dancehall flavoured album Adams was at one time promising. Magick rocks in stadium sized fashion. (Why do people have such a problem with Ryan rocking? Complaints about 'authenticity' abound, as if there was anything authentic about a hip-hop loving, millionaire Gen-xer singing a country song about agricultural labourers or something.) br / br /Cobwebs, Let us Down Easy and Crossed Out name are likewise all good. From Natural Ghost to Like Yesterday however, the album seems to slump. None of the songs are individually that bad, I think Sink Ships is good in fact, but listened to together they begin to blur into a tuneless, monochromatic drone. From someone that produced albums as bursting with hooks and melody as Gold and Cold Roses, this is something of a shock. We then however get the albums other standout, Stop, a gorgeous, emotive and inclusive ballad a world away from the solipsism Adams can sometimes fall into. br / br /The other problem with this album I think is that Adams seems to be playing it safe. It's as if in attempting to reign in all his excesses, he's lost part of what made him compelling to begin with. If I were to compare Adams to Neil Young, Easy Tiger, Follow The Lights and Cardinology would constitute his 'Harvest Period'. There's no arguing with the craftmanship of the songs, but there's an element of danger missing that keeps him from becoming just another singer-songwriter.


review by: date: 2008-12-28 rating:
Cardinology-GOLD!
Well what can i say, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals have possibly produced their best work yet. This is a fantastic album that from the first listen your aware is good, but played again and again the songs really grow on you! It has everything you've come to expect from Ryan co. Little bit country, little bit rock, little bit blusey, little bit folky. The man can do no wrong, if your a fan buy! you won't be dissapointed...

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