Jacket Full of Danger

Adam Green’s rattling baritone sounds richer refining each single track

Adam Green’s solo career began in 2002 when he was already known as a member of the American band Moldy Peaches. Green’s indie alternative folk style is quite often compared to Ben Folds, Leonard Cohen, Ben Kweller and sometimes with The Doors’ Jim Morrison, but his deep baritone is easy to remember and then recognize. He’s also well known for his charming appearance, contrasting with often hostile lyrics and the life style preached in his songs. This year the follow-up to singer and songwriter’s rather successful album Gemstones called Jacket Full Of Danger has been unleashed, marking the artist’s evident musical growth and maturity. As before, most songs on Jacket Full Of Danger are sad but light-minded, and the themes are typical for Adam Green’s music: drugs, surrealism and failed relationships. The album’s lineament is that now the singer describes different types of women in the songs, demonstrating his at times quite rude attitude towards them. Lyrically the new record pleases with wittier rhymes combining with the simplicity characteristic of Green’s creative work. The album also surprises with the rattling baritone sounding richer and refining each single track.

Jacket Full Of Danger is full of irony and at times even sarcasm

Preceded by the single Nat King Cole, the album Jacket Full Of Danger resembles Adam Green’s second solo work Friends Of Mine in the respect of the general slant of all the songs. Here are much less upyempo country folk compositions, prevailing on the previous album, and the bulk of the tracks present dramatic stories played against the background of lyrical strings. The album opens with a brilliantly performed song Pay The Toll about a broken heart and the hard times the main character is surviving trying to forget his love. The romanticism of this track may surprise many listeners, who are used to Adam’s flippancy. In this regard, the bold ballad Drugs is the song most fans would rather expect. Yet even here Green also manages to introduce the theme of relationships, but now the woman he’s singing about is his enemy for she has thrown his beloved drugs away. C-Birds is one of the most sullen songs with threatening strings and Cast A Shadow reminds of the pop music of 1960s. By the end of the album Green decisively turns to studying the female images. On the final track Hairy Women he presents the listeners a tragic story of balding girls and the way they see other women who do not suffer from this problem, though one cannot help thinking that he is simply mocking at them. Jacket Full Of Danger is full of irony and at times even sarcasm, alternating with lour and sorrow.

The most harmonious and moderate creation in every way

Adam Green is different from many of his young contemporaries, being much tougher, bolder and even cruel. At the same time, he is able to evoke sympathy and be sentimental. Controversies accompany him in many spheres from his often inappropriately pleasant appearance to the faceted songs. The resulting effect is that his music is difficult to take seriously, and actually this probably is his aim. Deliberately piquant lyrics combined with a nice baritone bear some unexpected and strange sense, which cannot be but appreciated. This is Adam Green’s main skill – to introduce mockery where there seems only a place for sentiments. The most important thing here is to understand where there is a line between enough and too much, and with the creation of Jacket Full Of Danger Adam seems to have finally found it. All the songs are melodious and interesting on the arrangements, and due to the fact that each of them has its own shade of emotion, it is impossible to get bored with the album. Crazy and calm, funny and sad, ironic and true-to-life – the singer’s new creation is the most harmonious and moderate in every way. Hopefully the newfound harmony is going to be preserved on Adam Green’s following creation as well.