Amid the slew of compelling acts currently emerging from the US - Low, The Magnetic Fields, Piano Magic et al - news of Whiskeytown frontman Ryan Adams's impending solo career elicits a burp of indifference.
Which is a mite unfair. Adams's edgy country blues offers precious little fresh or radical, but it eschews the arid AOR affectations that condemned Whiskeytown to the margins. If his lyrical obsessions - railroads, tattered dreams, girls named for dustbowl states - lurch towards pastiche, well, what the heck? Sparse vocals, tautly delivered, rescue the performance from self-parody.
Opener To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is to Be High) fizzles with nutra-sweet melodies, wrong-footing the smattering of sceptics huddling among the ranked alt-country buffs (a fatuous tag, to my mind).
On Oh My Sweet Carolina and To Be The One, Adams swaps pop sensibilities for stony reverence and - oh dear - a mouth organ. The renditions presage a journey into the deep south's dark heart, where intense acoustic flurries segue into bruised vignettes culled from Adams's acclaimed debut album, Heartbreaker.
There's too much unabashed nostalgia here, but Adams imbues pungent cliches with sufficient menace to ward off apathy. The future of furrow-browed, left-of-centre country rock? Darn tootin'!
