Latest CD releases reviewed

RYAN ADAMS AND THE CARDINALS
Cold Roses Lost Highway ****

Ryan Adams has been a busy boy again. Having hopefully worked his rock star inclinations out of his system with 2003's twin blast of Rock 'n' Roll and Love Is Hell, he took stock through last year and now launches the first of three promised efforts this year. And the good news is that Cold Roses is a (mostly) warm and convincing return to the classic country-rock of his breakthrough album, Heartbreaker. Adams is a frustrating artist, as much, and as often, a prat as a peach. But in this form his indulgence seems a reasonable price to pay for the sweeping ambition of the epic Meadowlake Street, the sweet easy of Let It Ride or the velvet reflection of Now That You're Gone. It's not all roses: Beautiful Sorta is lightweight filler, but even here the playing by his new band, featuring the twin attack of guitarist J P Bowersock and pedalsteel player Cindy Cashdollar, is admirable. www.ryan-adams.com  Joe Breen

RICHMOND FONTAINE
The Fitzgerald El Corazon Records ****

When asked by The Irish Times last year if the characters on Richmond Fontaine's impressive European debut were related, songwriter and singer Willy Vlautin said no, but they probably lived on the same block. The desperate, despairing characters who inhabit the vivid songs of this Portland, Oregon band's follow-up obviously live nearby. This is edgy songwriting in the dirty realism tradition. Against a backdrop of skeletal arrangements, mostly just guitar, Vlautin sings with sadness and resignation of a world on the margins. It's not pretty and it's not fun, but it is genuinely affecting and compelling listening. Vlautin also said last year that they had recorded a pretty bleak collection of songs, but the band were debating the wisdom of releasing such a downbeat album. Thankfully, he clearly won the debate. www.richmondfontaine.com  Joe Breen

PIERRE BENSUSAN
Altiplanos Favoured Nations ****

Ten albums on, and French acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Pierre Bensusan is about as far from autopilot mode as the Sistine chapel is from Andy Warhol's soup cans. But his decision to showcase his vocals on Demain dés l'Aube and La Nuit des Météores is not what sets this latest excursion apart. It's Bensusan's appetite for experimentation and his bold forays into territory more usually the domain of dance maestros that stir the listener to reach for his back catalogue. His is an acoustic architecture rather than a landscape, replete with French literary references that reek of a musical imagination that refuses to sit still. Long may this guru's itch remain unreachable. Attention deficit (dis)order never sounded so ravishing. www.pierrebensusan.com  Siobhán Long