Easy Tiger is a lilting and beautiful country-ish record that solidifies Ryan Adams’s position as one of the premier singer/songwriters of his generation. It is one of his most polished works, which may not seem like good thing (no one ever complained that Exile on Main Street needed more polish); but his newfound sobriety brings with it a maturity and discipline that, believe it or not, he wears well. At 38 minutes, the record seems to end too soon- a welcome respite in the digital age– and in my book when you want to go back and play the thing all over again, that is generally a very good sign.

Meanwhile the Cardinals continue to evolve and solidify as one of the best bands around. Neil Casal’s guitar is piercing and articulate; Jon Graboff’s pedal steel provides a lot of the feel and color. Every member of the band save for Adams and drummer Brad Pemberton has turned over since Cold Roses (2005), and yet they keep getting better and tighter, as their live shows continue to demonstrate. While the feminine presence of former bassist Catherine Popper is missed in the vocal mix, Chris Feinstein manages to push the Cardinals musical chemistry forward on his first record with the band.

The waltzes “Goodnight Rose” and “Tears of Gold” harken back to the country sounds of Jacksonville City Nights; either song would fit seamlessly on that record. “Two,” which Adams has been playing live for 18 months, is done as a duet with Sheryl Crow, a Cardinals fan who’s voice melds in a pretty way with his. Like a lot of Adams’s best songs, this one manages with simple language to capture the pure hurt of love; “It takes two, when it used to take only one…”

“Halloween Head” is a little anomalous here, done as a punkish garage rocker; what keeps it from being jarring is the insane catchiness of it. “Pearls On a String,” yet another beautiful song, contains lines that nicely sum up Adams’s prolific output: “Tomorrow’s on it’s way/ And there’s always new songs to sing.”

Adams and the Cardinals have been touring to support this record as an acoustic 6-piece, with producer Jamie Candiloro on piano and Adams putting his guitar aside (hand trouble.) The acoustic treatment brings out the richness in this material, the timelessness of the compositions. For those of us who enjoy artists like Neil Young, Van Morrison, and the Band, and who still treasure the classic records these artists made, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals are a contemporary treasure.

So this album had to grow on me. Don’t get me wrong, I am a HUGE White Stripes fan as evidenced by the LARGE amount of money i dropped on pre-release items and different media versions of this album. It’s hard not to think that Jack White has developed something of an ego–after all, when music critics call you a genius for anything as small as slapping an organ around a bit, it must be hard not to get a little bit of a god complex.

But if he has, he has not let it diffuse the element of play and seeming improvisation that brings the White Stripes sound together. The White Stripes is where Jack White is at the height of his powers. His brief excursion into The Raconteurs with Broken Boy Soldiers felt too constricted and lacking energy, and in other projects he didn’t sound as though he was having all that much fun. Many regard Get Behind Me Satan as dark White Stripes, but I don’t go along with that diagnosis–there are way too many fluctuations about that disc even that keeps me from thinking that Jack and Meg were getting too dour during that recording session.

With Meg White the music becomes music again, playing with all types of sounds and styles and maybe even poking a little fun at musical schools that we may take a little too seriously. This IS rock, after all, and if we can end “I’m Slowly Turning Into You” with a repetitive La chorus, what the hell? Why not?
The album kicks off with the dark, plodding guitar that blazes up to life every few seconds, and a sinuous synth ripple that slithers through the melody. “Icky thump/Who’da thunk?/Sittin drunk on a wagon to Mexico?” Jack yowls, describing the less pleasant corners of Mexico, and taking a moment to jab at Americans (”Why don’t you kick yourself out/You’re an immigrant too!”).

It softens up a lot for the catchy, bluesier rocker “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told),” and the mellow gritty “300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues.” Then the album goes through two phases: the first is one of British and Scottish folkiness, and a trumpety rocker that sounds like a B-side from Beirut. Then the last leg of the album slips back to blazing rock’n'roll, full of dark energy and retro organ.

Yeah, we have Jack blazing away like a forest fire on his guitars, whether it’s softer blues riffs, ringing blasts or hard-rocking swirls. And Meg smashes the drums like no other. But their music is festooned with a colourful array of extra instrumentation — sweeps of eerie, vintage psychedelic synth, sprightly gypsyish trumpets, and even bagpipes for the mesmerizing “St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air).”

Jack seems to have regained his verve as well: he sounds assured and a little sad, and his quirky voice has a new depth and power. But he hasn’t lost his melancholy edge, singing of Mexican robberies, stream of consciousness love songs, the rag and bone man, and a man who loves a woman so deeply, he lets her go so he won’t make her unhappy.

And Meg gets to display her clear voice a few times — she gets to talk with Jack in “Rag & Bone,” and the eerie Scottishy ballad “St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air)” has her murmuring a prayerlike song over a bagpipe/drum melody. (”This battle is in the air/I’m looking upwards/where are the angels?/I’m not in my home!”).

This album isn’t the profound and unannounced classic that De Stijl is, but it’s solid White Stripes stuff–which is to say that it’s diverse, imaginative, entertaining on both sides of the speaker, and a foot-stomping good time.

Rock on.

I find it interesting that several other less than glowing reviews mention that the writer is a long-time fan of Hanson. Well, I was never really a fan, although I certainly recognized their talent as well as the fact that even as kids they were a cut above your average “boy-band” if only for the fact that they played their own instruments (quite well) and wrote their own songs. Nonetheless, I am more of a fan of Indie-rock and bands like Radiohead, Spoon etc. A couple of years after the release of Hanson’s last album, “Underneath”, I became more interested in the group when I found about their middle finger to the music industry independent release of “Underneath” and their subsequent lectures and surprise gigs at colleges around the country. When I finally heard “Underneath”, I was impressed with the maturity of the songs and the rapid pace of the Hanson brothers growth as writers and musicians. Speaking as someone who was not particularly a fan of this band, I must say that “The Walk” shows growth leaps and bounds beyond “Underneath”.

Right from the opening track, the funky and muscular “Great Divide”, these guys are out to prove once and for all that they are no longer your sister’s Hanson. With an eye on a bigger picture, “Great Divide” gives us lines such as “When every eye is on the fortune - It can only breed contempt - I find hope in what eyes don’t see - I find hope in your hate for me”. So much for MMMBop. In fact, themes of life, death, loss and regret crop up in most of the songs. The gospel-tinged, People Get Ready influenced “Been There Before”, presents a slice-of-life look at a small southern town and the role music plays in the lives of the many generations of it’s residents. The wistful “Georgia”, driven by a superlative arpeggioed piano riff and an upbeat yet heart-wrenching melody, the kind of which Brian Wilson is famous for, could possibly be the best song the brothers have ever written and is almost definitely Taylor Hanson’s finest vocal moment to date. Another winning Taylor Hanson vocal crops up in the country-tinged “One More”, which also features excellent, tasteful brushed drumming by Zac Hanson and a fine Edge-like guitar solo by Isaac Hanson. The epic “Your Illusion” may be, at first, a bit too dark with it’s opening line of “You say you want to kill yourself”, however, the winning melody, more excellent guitar work by Isaac and superlative vocal work by Taylor, as well as an amazing harmony drenched, minor key tag at the end, more than makes up for that first awkward line.

The most noteworthy aspect of “The Walk” is the emergence of Zac Hanson as a songwriter and vocalist to be reckoned with. In fact, his songs (4 on the U.S. & European release and 6 on the Japanese release) consistently drift the furthest away from the Hanson sound and offer the most surprises on the CD both musically and lyrically starting with the ridiculously catchy, electric piano driven slice of 70’s pop “Running Man”. Zac immediately follows that up with the heart wrenching breakup song “Go”. Displaying mature beyond his 21 years lyrics, he offers lines such as “I heard your moving van - But I didn’t take a stand - You can’t leave with them - You can’t live without them” and makes you wonder if he’s referring to the protagonist’s children, material possessions or both. Either way, it’s an impressive lyric for someone his age who’s never been through a divorce and doesn’t even have children. Zac completes the trifecta with the next song - the acoustic guitar driven “Fire On The Mountain”- furiously spitting out lines such as- `If we don’t seek the knowledge to be greater men -When the rain starts falling we’re gonna drown before we get our feet wet- Live, learn, life, love, die, dust, gone’ - that leave no doubt he means business. Zac’s funky “Tearing It Down”, featuring some great Taylor Hanson clavinet playing, probably could have done without the silly “ni, ni, ni” vocal break, but it’s still a catchy, fun tune.

The only real mis-step could be Isaac Hanson’s lead vocal vehicle “Watch Over Me”. This is a song that will probably please longtime Hanson fans as it is the one song that most closely resembles the classic Hanson style of years past, however, in the midst of all the other more complex songs on “The Walk”, it seems strangely out of place. Clocking in at almost five minutes, “Watch Over Me” is also way too long for such a simple song. Luckily, Isaac makes up for the latter with his all-time finest vocal moment in his gritty duet with Taylor on the driving, energetic “Something Going `Round”.

Another quibble is the fact that the Oasis-like “In A Way” as well as the catchy, conga and piano driven “I Am”, two of Zac’s best songs, are relegated to bonus track status on the Japanese release and will not appear on any other versions of “The Walk”. It’s possible that the brothers didn’t want to overload the album with Zac songs, but when they are as good as the songs he’s written for this album, what does it matter? A good idea might have been to include “In A Way” and “I Am” in place of “Watch Over Me” and perhaps “Blue Sky”, which contains the most clichéd lyric on the album.

Otherwise, “The Walk” displays remarkable growth both musically and lyrically and shows the Hanson brothers becoming more confident in their musicianship as well. Hopefully this album can overcome the prejudices of non-Hanson fans who insist on pigeonholing Hanson as simply the kids who did “MMBop”as well as overcoming the prejudices of longtime Hanson fans who don’t like the idea that the band’s sound is evolving into something new. If Hanson can persevere through all of this, “The Walk” will find the wide audience it deserves and will achieve recognition as one of the fine albums released in 2007.

I hope this post finds you well. I want to start by thanking Travis for letting me crash his new blog party. I hope yall three of you that read this will be encouraged. If not, at least you will be entertained.