Demolition

1	Nuclear 3:25
2	Hallelujah 3:10
3	You Will Always Be the Same 2:37
4	Desire 3:41
5	Cry on Demand 4:22
6	Starting to Hurt 3:18
7	She Wants to Play Hearts 4:01
8	Tennessee Sucks 2:55
9	Dear Chicago 2:13
10	Gimme a Sign 3:03
11	Tomorrow 4:23
12	Chin Up, Cheer Up 2:59
13	Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby) 2:59

Barnes & Noble

Ryan Adams has become more than alt-country's poster boy. The onetime Whiskeytown frontman has seen his star on the rise since the release of his sleeper solo debut, Heartbreaker, in 2000. Those who missed that album's more intimate, lovelorn vibe in Adams's rockin' major-label entrée, Gold, will find plenty of winsome heartache on Demolition. Collecting 13 songs recorded over five recording sessions (each of which produced an album's worth of material!), the disc allows fans to play catch-up with the ultra-prolific singer-songwriter. Minus Gold's classic-rock stylings, Demolition leans heavily on spare acoustic ballads but also makes room for lushly arranged rockers ("Nuclear," "Starting to Hurt"), twangy country tunes (the Whiskeytown-redolent "Hallelujah"), and garage punk-fueled numbers (the Replacements-charged "Gimme a Sign"). But Adams achieves full creative steam on the set's intimate ballads, such as the aching "Desire," which sets Adams's dog-eared vocals against acoustic strumming and a lonesome harmonica line; the meditative, piano-driven "Cry on Demand"; and the delicate "Tomorrow," which pairs him with the honey-voiced Gillian Welch. "Chin Up, Cheer Up" reflects an admitted Dylan influence in Adams's weathered delivery, and the presence of lap steel player Bucky Baxter, a former Dylan sideman, adds a touch of authenticity. This is Adams's show, though, and it's the diversity and depth of his talent that make Demolition, and his career thus far, so notable. Lydia Vanderloo

All Music Guide

On more than one occasion, Ryan Adams has played solo acoustic gigs that consisted almost entirely of songs he wrote the afternoon of the show, and after his 2001 album, Gold, finally gave him an audience outside the small but rabidly enthusiastic alt-country scene, the very prolific Adams seemed to waste no time laying down as many songs as he possibly could. If one believes what one reads in New Musical Express, Adams cut about four albums' worth of material during sessions with various musicians and producers within the space of a year (not even counting the much talked about but to date unheard four-track recordings of blues versions of all the songs from the Strokes' debut disc, Is This It). Sensibly enough, Adams and his record company decided that releasing such a huge flood of material wasn't in the best interest of either artist or label, and instead Adams cherry-picked these sessions into a 13-track collection, Demolition. Appropriately enough, Demolition sounds less like "the third Ryan Adams album" than a collection of stray tunes -- some of which are very good, especially the lazy summer vibe of "Tennessee Sucks," the up-tempo acoustic twang of "Chin Up, Cheer Up," the winsome "Cry on Demand," and the heading-off-the-rails rocker "Starting to Hurt." But more than a few of the other songs on the album sound like rough drafts rather than completed works, and Demolition seems to lack a strong thematic or structural center. In short, Demolition sounds like a bunch of demos, which of course is just what it is, and while it preserves a few strong tunes and offers an insight into Adams' creative process, it also makes clear that even the rising wunderkind of Americana can benefit from a bit of judicious editing and polishing. Mark Deming