Pitchfork

Poor Ryan Adams' press still reads like it did four years ago, perpetuating the idea that he's a scruffy-haired, shaggy-dog troubadour with loads of ambition but no direction, a prodigious pen with no internal editor. Every onstage incident is reported as a "fit," and people still wonder if he's dating Parker Posey. But Adams has changed. Possibly. As Marc Hogan commented in his album review earlier this year, Easy Tiger is Adams' most consistent and concerted effort since 2001's Gold. Perhaps no longer confident that fans or passersby will follow him down just any avenue, Adams has focused his songwriting and settled down with a band, the very capable Cardinals. His new sound draws equally from the lite country he made with Whiskeytown and from the Grateful Dead noodliness the Cardinals brought to Cold Roses. Sheryl Crow dueted on the first single from Easy Tiger, a sure sign that Adams was making a go of it commercially. But he wasn't selling out so much as finally getting his head in the game-- which is just what armchair detractors had been advising him to do for years.

Such modesty and straightforwardness suit Adams well, nowhere more so than on Follow the Lights, a satellite EP orbiting planet Tiger. In a sense, however, this is the Cardinals' record, with Adams graciously stepping aside as if to make up for not giving them cover billing on Easy Tiger. It's easy to see what Adams sees in his group: It has the range to follow him anywhere-- from punk to alt-country to nu-Dead to Starbucks rock-- yet the band focuses his creative energies in one direction instead of letting it spray everywhere. Offering a jumbled chronology of their ongoing collaboration, Follow the Lights contains a few new songs, bonus tracks from previous Cardinals albums, at least one worthwhile do-over, and an Alice in Chains cover that's only evident as such if you look at the liners. The halting acoustic arrangement on "If I Am a Stranger", from Cold Roses, creates a lonely space for Adams' heartbroken lyrics and Heartbreaker vocals, which recapture a little of the twang of his earlier material. The piano-lead "Dear John", which Adams co-wrote with Norah Jones and originally appeared on the Australian edition of Jacksonville City Nights, showcases his easy harmonies with Cardinals guitarist Neal Casal.

Nowhere is the backing band's impact more evident than on "This Is It", a salvage of a track from Adams' spectacular 2003 disaster Rock N Roll: The Cardinals abandon that album's Strokesy bluster for a sweeter, scruffier sound that enhances the song's hook and showcases Adams' adaptable songwriting. They don't fare nearly as well, however, on "My Love for You Is Real", which is as forgettable as its title suggests. The song ends with an instrumental coda that lets the band stretch out but doesn't give them a lot to do. What should be a big moment is just a transition to "Blue Hotel", which sounds cleaner than the version on Willie Nelson's Songbird but lacks his elegantly rough-hewn vocals. Best of all is the title track, which sounds as good as anything on Easy Tiger, with Jon Graboff's pedal steel draping over a delicate melody and a strong hook assaying Adams' tender imagery: "Follow the lights that line the streets connecting telephones," he sings, his voice fuzzing out at the edges to give the song a strong dreampop quality. "Follow the lights from house to house and they will lead you home."

Perhaps this newfound sense of focus-- this (gasp) professionalism-- is just a phase, like new wave was in '03 or godawful hardcore was in, um, that same year. Rewriting industry rules to suit your own disposition-- releasing as many damn albums as you please, playing whatever style suits your fancy, rapping on your web site, flipping the bird at the rock norm-- is certainly admirable, but in Adams' case, the spectacle often overshadows the music. As Easy Tiger suggested and Follow the Lights proves, Adams sounds best when he's going strictly by the book.