Nightbirds is the new track to be taken from Ryan Adams’ critically acclaimed album 29. The two other long players Adams released in 2005 (double disc Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Nights) were both written and recorded with his band The Cardinals, all tracks on 29 were written by Adams.
The songs, performed by Adams, Ethan Johns and guitarist JP Bowerstock, are minimalist arrangements and full of haunting tones, thus showing us yet another side of Adams’ prolific nature. While 29 is a better than his recent efforts, it is still nowhere near the greatness of 2001’s Gold. With producer extraordinaire Ethan Johns (Heartbreaker 2000, Gold 2001) on board twiddling the knobs, this is probably what saves this album, and helps it from disappearing into oblivion.
With his now trademark laid back country-blues style, Adams delivers probably the most stripped back performance on the album with the song Nightbirds. The song begins with Adams’ beautiful vocals floating over haunting piano and soft drums. A sorrowful story about how the pain of a troubled relationship is screaming inside you. A relationship where both of you were “supposed to rise above”. But things turn bad, don’t work and you end up in the position where you “sink”. A situation of a lost love and a missed opportunity.
Wether this is a reflection on Adams’ own life, who knows. The crashing guitars at the end of the song echo the emptiness depicted in his words, and you almost get a mental image of Adams, slowly falling down into a deep ocean, full of regret, surrounded by bubbles of sorrow rising slowly to the surface above. A song of melancholy from a beautiful album. But Ryan, please get back to rock ‘n’ roll some time soon.
