- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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MojoSome of the best songs he's written since Heartbreaker. [Jan 2004, p.98]
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Some of the most focused, artful, and affecting work of his career. [Review applicable to both Part 1 and Part 2]
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The Adams of Love Is Hell has gone out to make an album that actually is classic rock n roll rather than one that can simply impersonate it, and sound convincing. [Review applicable to both Part 1 and Part 2]
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Shares some influences -- the Replacements, '80s English alt-pop -- with ''Rock N Roll,'' but the writing is tighter, the production cleaner, and the performances more considered.
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Q MagazinePart 1's eight deluxe country rock essays all impress. [Feb 2004, p.98]
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Stripped of arrangements, the songs are mostly brooding ballads, shadowy blends of folk mixed with traditional country that highlight Adams' shaky voice and caustic songwriting. [combined review of 1&2]
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'Love Is Hell' is proof that Ryan Adams is still on form and as splendid as ever.
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The Love Is Hell discs are far more dense and dark, making the songs a fun challenge to crack open, though it isn't difficult to determine what a no-brainer it must have been for Lost Highway to favor the brilliant Roll over the more spotty Hell discs. [Review applies to both EPs and 'Rock N Roll']
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More commercial - and much better - than 'Rock'n'Roll', occasionally resembling the grandstand melancholia of Coldplay, and more frequently their antecedents The Smiths and Jeff Buckley. [Review applicable to both Part 1 and Part 2]
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BlenderThe bleakness is stirring as often as it is enervating. [#23, p.100]
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SpinEverything is underwritten or overwrought. [Feb 2004, p.104]
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When [Love is Hell] works, and it does so only sporadically, Adams creates songs of suffocating closeness and density.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 20 out of 21
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Mixed: 1 out of 21
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Negative: 0 out of 21
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Sep 5, 2011
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ZachJMay 16, 2006
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NastyRFeb 3, 2006