Jacksonville City Nights
by Ryan Adams & The Cardinals

From buzzdainer TOP 100 COMMENTER 09/22/2016 15:21 | #175570 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

It's incredible to me that during perhaps the most manically prolific period in Ryan Adams's career--he released three albums, including the double album Cold Roses, in 2005 alone--he could make a country album as intimate and well crafted as this one. As the title implies (it's a reference not to Jacksonville, Florida, but to his native Jacksonville, North Carolina), this is Ryan Adams returning to his North Carolina roots in a way that's even twangier than his recordings with Whiskeytown. In particular I'm thinking of the opener, "A Kiss Before I Go," a breezy, two-minute goodbye song whose pedal steel sounds straight out of the late-sixties Gram Parsons catalog.

From paladisiac TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/10/2011 04:23 | #32569 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

"Jacksonville City Nights" continues in the Gram Parsons vein. You'd convince me if you said Ryan Adams & the Cardinals recorded both this and "cold roses" at the same time. Highlights include "a kiss before i go" ("breath all heavy and slow / a shot, a beer and a kiss before i go" ooh baby), the mid-tempo hit jam "the hardest part", "hard way to fall" (in love, of course) and "trains". "the hardest part" could've easily been just as upbeat of a rocker as his other opening-album hits, and feels like it despite the slower cadence, with fun semi-sensical stuff like "Promises don't pay cash at the bank / If they did I'm bidding your word / They couldn't pay me for the time that it took to write a check / To buy a babydoll for my girl" with chorus "The hardest part is loving / Somebody that cares for you so much". Other fun moments include the moments in "the end" where ryan tries to stuff some extra lyrics into the verse ("The waitress tries to give me change I say, \"Nah, it's cool. Just keep it"\"), and "games" ("You ain't but a fire on my sad estate / Burning my house to the ground"). The only song i'd chop would be "dear john" featuring norah jones -- it ambles on nowhere with a cliched premise. That segues into slow-burn "games" followed by slow-burn "silver bullets". Two-of-three good songs, but makes for a lull in the middle of this album. "peaceful valley" is a slow one too, but sounds weary and ravaged and a welcome breath of discontent. "my heart is broken" recalls 70s country w/ slide guitar.

From zdwyatt TOP 100 COMMENTER 02/15/2018 17:31 | #208301 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This is an alt-country guy kinda sorta going full country, albeit old school country. It's maybe a little dark to make it all the way there, but I really like the sound and overall feeling of this record.

Favorite tracks: Silver Bullets, Dear John, Withering Heights

From HoldenM TOP 100 COMMENTER 11/07/2017 16:18 | #200927 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Quite pleasant, with a fine handful of highlights. Good on you, Ry-guy.

From Captain_Dude 07/13/2014 01:22 | #116564 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I'll second the comparison to Graham Parsons.