After a semi-successful, but critically acclaimed, beginning as the songwriting frontman for the alt/country heroes Whiskeytown, and then three solo albums that straddled the release of Whiskeytown's much litigated swan song release Pneumonia, it appeared that perhaps Adams was a prolific wunderkind incapable of writing a bad song. Earlier this year Time magazine bestowed the honor of America's best songwirter on Lucinda Williams - she was dumfounded by the honor and quickly pointed out that they'd obviously overlooked Ryan Adams, who could write circles around her. Being a songwriter myself, if Lucinda said this about me, I'd be tempted to step in front of a cement truck and die the happiest man ever.

Being a huge fan of young Mr. Adams I began reading that he was writing some tunes for a rock outfit called the Pink something-or-others, and I feared that this turn out to be his Achilles heal, spreading his talent too thin, biting off more than he can chew. The album that came of this project Rock and Roll, isn't awful, it just kind of plods ahead from one Repacements-sounding power-pop ditty to the next, that may have been a pretty good toe-tapping ,head-bobbing get-it-out-of-my-system bit of catharsis had it not been recorded in two weeks and had Adams invested any heart or soul into it's lyrics.

Bottom-line I've never seen such a division of opinion - having heard it enough times to formulate a fair opinion, I wouldn't buy it with my own money. On the other hand, it made Spin's top 40 at #19. What a colossal gaffe - Spin might as well duct tape the dunce cap to their head right now. There are a few fine moments on Rock N Roll, but it's only a notch or two above sucking. And that's coming from a huge fan.

During all of which he was recording another solo piece that was being compared favorably to his critically adored first solo album Heartbreaker. The pressure combined with perhaps a substance problem or two culminated in a few shows that are now legendary meltdowns. I won't go into this but for some boneheaded reason the ordinarily savvy folks at Lost Highway records decided to release Love is Hell as two seperate EPs. Quite inexplicably they were released within months of each other. And they're both gorgeous, remindful of his best stuff from Heartbreaker to Demolition.

Irregardless of it's severed presentation, Love is Hell finds Adams back swinging confident wood in his wheelhouse. Rueful, melodic, lyrically solid, just how we like our Adams, straight up. It's all a bit odd and unfortunate but not really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. The best approach if you're really a Adam's fan, just skip Rock and Roll, get Love is Hell 1 and 2 burn them together, and get on with your life.