One rather suspects that in Ryan Adams' well-thumbed How To Be A Rock And Roll Star lexicon, the phrase "judicious editing" - unlike, say, "hanging with Elton", "posing ambiguously with handguns and American flags" and "all those chicks who did me wrong" - is conspicuous by its absence.
Which only serves to make 'Demolition' a pleasant surprise for more than just the hardest-core fans of this tirelessly prolific twenty-seven year old. Its thirteen tracks, recorded around the same period as 'Gold', Adams' slick, beady-eyed aim at the American rock mainstream, this interstitial release is three tracks and twenty-five minutes shorter than its big-push predecessor…and all the better for it. In fact, 'Demolition' may be a rare example of purely commercial dictates - namely, what was doubtless a label decision to downsize from a threatened four-CD boxed set - improving the art in question.
Oddly enough, however, this album's "keeper" tracks - as many as half of 'em, if you're not offended by the 'Stars In Their Eyes'-level Dylan/Band/Petty hommages of 'Hallelujah', 'Desire' and a shameless 'Chin Up, Cheer Up' - aren't necessarily the polar opposites of the numbers that made 'Gold' that little bit too big for its sonic britches. Naturally, it goes without saying that something sold as a set of demos (even if its production values and budget easily exceed the wildest dreams of any lo-fi indie act you'd care to name) will be fairly long on intimate, sensitive, moody songs.
Check, check, and check: we get a prettily finger-picking 'You Will Always Be The Same', a skulking Lee Hazlewood-meets-Jesus And Mary Chain tone-poem called 'Jesus (Don't Touch My Baby)' and the inevitable bad-woman-tastic 'She Wants To Play Hearts', which appears to have been separated from Elvis Costello's 'I'm Your Toy' only after a lengthy struggle. But of the downbeat offerings here, only the twinkling piano and delicate Bucky Baxter harmonies of 'Cry On Demand' - not, sadly, a precis of the modus operandi of singer/songwriter boys, just another one about one of those chicks who done him wrong - elevates itself from sulky to gorgeous.
In fact, it's the least Officially Cool numbers on 'Demolition' that offer the most unalloyed pleasure. The deceptively carefree 'Nuclear', with its bittersweet chorus and calculatedly goofball lines about being a "sentimental geek", and the unsurprisingly Replacements-esque 'Gimme A Sign', display a touch of the spontaneity that demos are, after all, supposed to offer. In a similar vein, and easily the best thing on the album, is the itchy, bass-led, sore-throat soar of 'Starting To Hurt': a deliciously Eighties Rock Radio-style pop song that owes as much to John Waite as it does to Paul Westerberg.
As does, one suspects, the Boy Wonder himself. Having proven that he can conjure up doppelgangers of 'The Weight' and 'John Wesley Harding' without breaking into a sweat, our Ryan could do worse than a few more takes on Waite's 'Missing You' while he's waiting for his muse to lead him somewhere that will sound like Ryan Adams and absolutely nobody else.
