Welcome back to Ryan Adams the poet--previously missing presumed dead, or at least seriously wounded by the hand of his own gutless record label. Love Is Hell combines both previous EPs of the same name, originally released as such by Lost Highway, wary of the lack of mainstream pop Adams had delivered them (causing the slighted musician to knock up the throwaway yet still utterly indispensable Rock 'n' Roll). Here we find four songs chopped (none missed) and one … mehradded--the world-weary yet utterly romantic "Does Anybody Want To Take Me Home" from Rock 'n' Roll (potential single material, cut from the same cloth as "This House Is Not for Sale"). Love Is Hell is a desolate, artistically ambitious, yet strangely moving piece of work that visits someplace on the edge of town ("Political Scientist") and his own harsh self examination ("God, what have I been drinking?" he asks in the title track). This emotional fug sometimes clears to reveal a still beating, if bruised heart ("This House Is Not for Sale") although occasionally it can become too much (the pedestrian "My Blue Manhattan", and the aimless "Avalanche"). Aside from "Afraid Not Scared" (which smacks of Radiohead's "Subterranean Homesick Alien") the whole thing sounds like a silent motif for the quiet desperation of life, like a single maudlin violinist playing on a tube platform at midnight. That and a smoky, sublime cover of "Wonderwall" makes for a near-perfect Ryan Adams record. --Ben Johncock weniger

1 - Political Scientist
2 - Afraid Not Scared
3 - This House Is Not For Sale
4 - Anybody Wanna Take Me Home
5 - Love Is Hell… mehr
6 - Wonderwall
7 - The Shadowlands
8 - World War 24
9 - Avalanche
10 - My Blue Manhattan
11 - Please Do Not Let Me Go
12 - City Rain, City Streets
13 - I See Monsters
14 - English Girls Approximately
15 - Thank You Louise
16 - Hotel Chelsea Nights weniger