Audio Mixer: Jamie Candiloro.

Recording information: Electric Lady Studios, New York, NY.

Photographers: Phillip Andelman; Neal Casal; Andy West ; Jon Graboff.

Ever since his 2001 breakout, Ryan Adams has been a critical lightning rod and a PR disaster. From infamous onstage fits and a barrage of albums simultaneously prolific and scatterbrained, Adams's relationship with fame was bristly at best. Even the I-was-this-close-to-dying drug confessions that immediately pre-dated the release of this record seemed like a clumsy bid for Keith Richards-style rockitude. Critics and even frustrated fans all seemed to agree: the kid has talent, but he's very annoying. In this milieu, Adams drops EASY TIGER--his ninth record of the decade--with a title that suggests that he and everyone else should take a step back and reassess.

Fans will rejoice: EASY TIGER--recorded with his backing band, the Cardinals--is the closest Adams has sounded to the style on his excellent debut, HEARTBREAKER. His ADD genre approach is on display here--from the lazy, AMERICAN BEAUTY-style bluegrass of "Pearls on a String" to the full-roar power pop of "Halloweenhead" to the blue-eyed-soul duet with Sheryl Crow, "Two." The songs are tight and to the point; almost all are uniformly great; and all serve to bolster his case for "importance" as a songwriter that years of overt trying have failed to yield. Seems like "easy, tiger" is that successful approach Adams has been looking so hard for.

Easy Tiger has a "slow it down there, pal" undertone to its title -- and who needs a word of caution other than Ryan Adams himself, who notoriously spread himself far and wide in the years following his 2000 breakthrough Heartbreaker. After celebrating his 30th birthday with a flurry of albums in one year, Adams decided to pull back, hunker down, and craft one solid album that deliberately plays to his strength. As such, Easy Tiger could easily be seen as the album that many of his fans have wanted to hear since Heartbreaker, a record that is tight and grounded in country-rock. Easy Tiger is focused, but so have been some of the other thematic albums Adams has delivered with such gusto -- when he tried to run with the Strokes on Rock N Roll, mimicked the Smiths and Jeff Buckley on Love Is Hell, even turned out a full-on country album in Jacksonville City Nights, complete with knowing retro cover art, he stayed true to his concept -- but the cumulative effect of the records was to make him seem scattered, even if the records could work on their own merits. With each album since the wannabe blockbuster of 2001's Gold, his restlessness has seemed not diverse but reckless, so even his good albums seemed to contribute to the mess. Easy Tiger intends to break this perception by being concise, right down to how every one but one of these tight 13 songs clock in somewhere between the two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half minute mark. For somebody as doggedly conceptual as Adams, this is surely a deliberate move, one designed to shore up support among supporters (no matter if they're fans or critics), which Easy Tiger very well might. Surely, it is a welcoming album in many ways, partially due to the relaxed Deadhead vibe Adams strikes up with his band the Cardinals, reminiscent of 2005's fine Cold Roses. But if that CD sprawled, this one is succinct, as Adams flits through country-rockers and weepers -- plus the occasional rock detour, like anthemic '80s arena rocker "Halloween Head" or the spacy "The Sun Also Sets," a dead ringer for Grant Lee Phillips -- containing not an ounce of fat. Adams benefits from the brevity, most notably on the sweetly melancholy "Everybody Knows," the straight-up country of "Tears of Gold," or on "Two," which mines new material out of the timeworn "two become one" conceit. Here, his songs don't stick around longer than necessary, so they linger longer in memory, but the relentless onward march of Easy Tiger also gives the performances an efficiency bordering on disinterest, which is its Achilles' heel. As fine as some of the songs are, as welcoming as the overall feel of the record is, it seems a bit like Adams is giving his fans (and label) "Ryan Adams by numbers," hitting all the marks but without passion. This is when his craft learned from incessant writing kicks in -- he can fashion these tunes into something sturdy and appealing -- but it also highlights how he can turn out a tune as lazily as he relies on casual profanity to his detriment. Ultimately, these flaws are minor, since Easy Tiger delivers what it promises: the most Ryan Adamsy Ryan Adams record since his first. For some fans, it's exactly what they've been waiting for, for others it'll be entirely too tidy, but don't worry -- if Adams has proven to be anything it's reliably messy, and he's sure to get ragged again somewhere down the road (and based on his past record, safe money is on October 2007). ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Spin (p.96) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "You get deep-twang country rock, fuzzy new-wave pop, a little old-school mountain music, and a handful of acoustic emo-folk ballads."

Entertainment Weekly (p.139) - "EASY TIGER keeps it simple: beguiling melodies, an ace band, and Adams' elastic tenor." -- Grade: A-

Uncut (p.114) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Adams appears more at ease in his own skin, soothing himself into these 13 songs rather than straining hard....EASY TIGER feels like a more assured follow-up to the countrified COLD ROSES."

Alternative Press (p.178) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Adams often finds himself revisiting past glories on EASY TIGER....A rather pleasing listen..."

CMJ (p.41) - "Backed by his trusty band, the Cardinals, Adams continues to touch hearts with woeful tales of love-gone-wrong."

No Depression (p.92) - "'Two Hearts' is as catchy a piece of country-rock as a Flying Burrito Brother could have imagined, and the execution is flawless."

Q (Magazine) (p.78) - Ranked #27 in Q's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2007" -- "[T]hese 14 compact, tuneful songs slip by with a deceptive, but pleasing ease."