Ryan Adams -- Jacksonville City Nights

Jacksonville City Nights
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
(Lost Highway)

If you've been waiting for Ryan Adams to make an album as sadly beautiful as his solo debut, "Heartbreaker," you might stop holding your breath when you hear the first lonesome cries of pedal steel and pick-strum, pick-strum of his acoustic guitar on his latest disc, "Jacksonville City Nights."

Adams has traveled a winding road since the flameout of alt-country darlings Whiskeytown. That doesn't mean he's hard to find. Between the love affairs with semi-celebrities, the petulant behavior, the occasional pissing matches with critics (Jim DeRogatis) and other musicians (Paul Westerberg) and the excessive drinking, Adams draws plenty of attention to himself. He also invites it with his enormous talent and bigger potential.

Because Adams wanders from style to style, he's many things to many people. For every fan who enjoys the country-informed "Heartbreaker" or the classic FM stylings of "Gold," there's one who enjoys the textured modern rock of "Rock N Roll" or the mope-rock of "Love Is Hell" (Pts. 1 and 2). And vice versa.

Adams now is running after his latest muse at a gallop, with a plan to release three albums this year. He and his new backing band, The Cardinals, came out of the gate strong in May with "Cold Roses," a meandering double disc in the tradition of '70s Neil Young and "American Beauty"-era Grateful Dead. It was too long, but boasted a strong second disc featuring the single "Let It Ride," which might well be the best song Adams releases this year.

"Jacksonville City Nights" is more focused (and better) than "Cold Roses" (again, individual mileage will vary). It's also something of a return to form, if there is in fact an ideal version of Adams.

The jammy "Cold Roses" highlighted the individual talents of The Cardinals. "Jacksonville City Nights" is a straight-up country record, dialing back the solos and focusing more on the acoustic, the steel, the piano and the confessional, gin-soaked lyrics.

It's risky to judge an album by its cover, but in this case it works. Say what you will about Adams, but he has a sense of tradition and history. "Cold Roses" was packaged in a faux-leather gatefold straight out of the '70s and strongly suggesting the Dead with its rose carved in the center. "Jacksonville" looks like a early-'60s honky-tonk LP you'd find in the dollar bin today. Graphically, it brings old-school touches like a list of the song titles on the front cover. Visually, the picture – an empty bar, a distraught young lady and a broken mirror – tells you a lot about what's inside.

The content doesn't disappoint, though at times it's too subdued to be classic country. The opener, "A Kiss Before I Go," is a big, wet kiss goodbye to the neighborhood saloon and its lovely inhabitants. Regret and goodbyes run through this disc's 46 minutes like a mountain road, spiraling downward until you reach the bottom. In "Hard Way To Fall," our (anti)hero watches that old girl of his with another man, who he advises to "treat her nice/hold her hand, tell her twice/that she doesn't have to worry." The protagonist of "My Heart is Broken," a recycled Whiskeytown B-side, is miserable, even though his cheating brought the pain.

Lovers aren't the only ones lost and left. Death casts a pall over "Jacksonville City Nights" and spares no one. In "Dear John," a duet co-written with Norah Jones, a woman misses her dead husband and even the loose ends of their marriage such as "the window you never fixed" and "when we lost our first child." "September" shows us a man mourning the loss of a woman, drinking by her grave and running his fingers over her name carved in the cold stone. "Pa" tells the tale of two deaths that apparently come on the same day. "Peaceful Valley" is about rolling with the punches "till the peaceful vally calls me home," hopefully for a greater reward.

Like a lot of good country music, much of "Jacksonville City Nights" is real lonesome, tear-in-your-beer stuff. It sounds like last call, but from out in the alley after you've been kicked out on your ass. Sometimes the vibe is even more bleak, evoking 3 a.m. and a house empty except for you and the stereo.

There's still room for a little light. Adams enters into a long troubadour tradition by writing a train song, "Trains," which choogles along and celebrates the freedom to roll from town to town. "The Hardest Part" has a loping beat and the strongest melody on the disc.

Adams always has been unashamed to let his influences – be they The Dead, Dylan, Young or Elton John – shine through. On "Jacksonville City Nights," the spirit of Gram Parsons' "Hickory Wind" is alive and well on "The End." The lovely waltz gives a shout out to Adams' hometown of Jacksonville, N.C., and reminds us that we are tied to the place from where we came, though Adams' take is decidedly less wistful than Parsons' ode to childhood and home.

If you have been waiting for that "Heartbreaker"-like record, then you're already well acquainted with Adams' style-hopping and prolific output. Chances are you're also among those who would like to see him scale back production and save something for the box set. Each shift in styles seems to alienate a few fans, but they would have to admit that even the discs they don't like contain a handful of gems. Adams gives the impression that he's writing songs as fast as he can, chasing Bob Dylan and searching for his "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde" (or maybe more appropriately, Parsons and his "GP" and "Grievous Angel"). Adams probably has written a couple of great albums, but their songs are scattered across his official releases and B-sides instead of on the same discs.

The flipside of this common criticism is that despite flooding the market, Adams' albums all are loved by some part of his fan base, and all are above average. In five months, he's released an album sure to be in a slew of top-10 lists for 2005 and followed it with one that is better and more focused. Perhaps the third time really will be a charm. We'll find out soon.