This is 2011, if an album doesn't kick in, there are a million more just waiting for our attention. So when neither Adam's Ashes And Rain nor Marling's A Creature I Do Not Know hit my mental repeat button, I said fuck em and moved on.
But 'tis the season and with Adams at Carnegie and Marling at McKittrick coming up I thought I'd give the recent(ish) releases another shot. One clicked, the other didn't. Before I get to the albums, Alyson wrote about their "Oh My Sweet Carolina" collaboration. and all I'll add is Laura is to Emmylou Harris what Adam's is to Gram Parsons.
To The albums. No, A Creature I Do Not Know is not as good as Alas I Cannot Swim. Swim opens with two sure shots, "Ghosts" and "Old Stone" and they are more listener friendly, so she can lay it on ya as the album progresses. Yeah, it does feel like an English Heartbreaker type move. It's a a folk album with a back beat, a wordy, distraught kiss off.
Creature starts off wrong, a blues misstep, "Muse", is followed by the strings attached "I Was Just A Card", "i was just a card looking down to mars" or something like that, (ergo it isn't her best song). Plus, while her personal life is not my business, if her exes are gonna write entire albums abiut her break up it is hardly my fault. And while going from Charlie Fink to the dreadful Marcus Mumford might be an upgrade in the rock and roll pecking order, it is nothing of the sort in the music work. Noah And the Whale are much, much, much better than Mumford And Sons. She is now dating an English actor, which will end my prying but suggests she is sick of the competitiveness that Gaga recently claimed was leaving her lonely.
So, anyway, it took a few listens before I noticed "Salinas" and "Sophia" and got into the album the long way round. It really does repay close listening and while it is a little glum for my taste, it is a virtual sweet sixteen compared with Ashes And Rain.
From 2005 to 2008, Adams couldn't stop recording songs. Five albums plus outtakes aplenty, Three albums in 2005 alone. And as you might expect, they are hit and miss affairs, reaching a zenith in 2008 with the brilliant Cardinology. So two things:
1. i will give the prolific guy the benefit of the doubt.
2. Ryans' albums are like grabbing a cab, one misses you, there will be another soon enough.
Ashes And Rain misses me. I mean, if a song with a title as great as "I Love You But I Don't Know What To Say" is gonna suck, what is left to say??? An acoustic quasi Harvest (Adams has a great voice, what's with the Neil Young impression?). He has said he scrapped 80% of the album after hearing Laura Marling's second album. Maybe that was a mistake. Marling isn't his compeition. When Marling writes an album as great as Rock N Roll, maybe. Or, for that matter, a run of albums as great as his first 5 solo efforts, MAYBE. Heartbreaker is so great it is better than Charlie Finks stunning goodbye to Laura, The First Day Of Spring.
FYI:
Ryan is 38
Charlie is 25
Marcus is 24
Laura is 22
Ashes And Rain Grade: B
A Creature I Do Not Know Grade A-