Cold Roses
by Ryan Adams & The Cardinals

From paladisiac TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/10/2011 04:21 | #32568 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Ryan Adams actually released THREE albums in 2005, two with The Cardinals and one solo album. My favorite of the three is Cold Roses, a double-CD showing off Ryan and the band doing their best Gram Parsons impression, with some pneumonia-era whiskeytown and faint hints of CSNY thrown in. This is his best stuff since Gold, offering his best "magnum-opus" work "magnolia mountain" (near 6 minutes). This album often sounds like 70s country rock, and one of the best songs, including "sweet illusion" (still-in-love-post-breakup-song), "beautiful sorta", "mockingbird", "easy plateau" and "let it ride" (the hit!). The lyrics are usual Ryan Adams fare, ranging from the earnest & near-poetic like "If the morning comes, will you lie to me / Will you take me to your bed / Will you lay me down / Till I'm heavy like the rocks on the riverbed" (magnolia mountain) or "no one leaves the lights on in a house where nobody lives anymore" (when will you come back home) to cheekily-witty like "Everything you ever touched, the fingerprints like / Crime scene evidence undisturbed in dust / I don't dare touch anything of yours, because it's evidence of us" (now that you're gone) or "Sleepyhead, come on let's take a ride / To the easy plateau in the back of your mind / Up through the alley, take the door under the stairs / My head ain't feeling nothing but cats and rocking chairs" (easy plateau). Ryan Adams works the quickest for you if you're in love or just out of love, like on "cherry lane" where Ryan sings "i can never get/be close enough (to you)" repeated through to the impassioned ending yearn. There's an earned assuredness here, like in "dance all night", a simple, straight-ahead, mid-tempo acoustic number you could swear you've heard Ryan do before, but he brings renewed feeling to singing "I ain't lonely now / Yeah, I've got someone I love / Someone I think about / Someone for me to take care of " with lovely harmonies. Of course, his upbeat rockers are pretty damn good too, from "beautiful sorta", and "if i am a stranger" to "let it ride". It's a bar-room, foot-tapper, where ryan adams sings "Let it ride / Let it rock me in the arms of strangers, angels until it brings me home / Let it ride / Let it roll / Let it go" at the chorus.

From Romanelli TOP 100 COMMENTER 05/30/2011 14:32 | #22468 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

A great collection of songs. Adams in his most prolific period. Actually could have been a single album...try not to pay the double price!

From buzzdainer TOP 100 COMMENTER 02/12/2016 00:11 | #159406 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

When Ryan Adams and his new (at the time) band, the Cardinals, released this album in 2005, I had just gone through a horrific breakup. Turns out Ryan Adams had, too. (I'm glad I didn't know anything about Parker Posey at the time, or else that might have diminished my appreciation for this album.) These were exactly the songs I needed at the time to accompany me on my long move west from Vermont to Nevada. "Magnolia Mountain" is a gorgeous, epic homage to the Grateful Dead, and "If I Am a Stranger" is one of the most devastating breakup songs I've ever heard. Thanks, Ryan, for keeping me company on that lonesome drive across the country with this collection of great nostalgic rock songs.

It's a bit bloated and could do with a bit of editing, but editing and Ryan Adams don't really go together. It's all competent and enjoyable, but it's not great. The problem with Adams, especially in the noughties, is his quality control. He obviously prefers quantity over that quality and releases way too much material. Cold roses, is fine, but considering just how much music Adams was releasing at this time, he could have released one single LP of killer tunes instead of shitload of records, that to be honest, are never going to be thought of as classics. Still, cold roses, is fun enough.

Great album. It might not reach all the heights that Heartbreaker and Gold do, but on the other hand it feels more consistent. That it maintains that consistent quality as a double album is impressive. At points it also inhabits the same sonic and emotional territory as 1989, which I take as a good thing.