Ryan Adams - Magick

The local college radio station, XCI, played much of the new Ryan Adams album, Cardinology, on my drive home from work tonight. I was a little disappointed in what I heard. There are some really great arrangements (I think it was “Born Into a Light” that made me notice this as I navigated the curves of Candlewood Lake Road), and Adams's talent was evident on every track I heard (I think I caught five or six of them), but for the most part they just failed to move me. The exception was the punchy tune “Magick,” which Rolling Stone, in their glowing review, calls “pure mindless garage-rock pleasure.” I guess that must be my alley.