Whiskeytown: Stranger's Almanac (Deluxe Edition) : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Like their alt-country peers Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown were a short-lived outfit that made primo tunes via two core talents: the sweetly ragged yearning of perpetual train wreck Ryan Adams and the poignant fiddle and harmonies of foil Caitlin Cary. Released in 1997, when Adams was twenty-two, Almanac was Whiskeytown's major-label debut, and although the group was in upheaval, the record is remarkably polished, coloring Gram Parsons-style country rock with R.E.M.'s vocal drama ("Not Home Anymore") and the Replacements' beer-breath blues ("Yesterday's News"). The album is a minor classic, and this reissue proves Adams was ridiculously prolific even then. The bonus disc of unearthed Nineties sessions would itself make a strong album, unplugging many Almanac songs alongside other originals and covers, including Adams' plaintive reading of Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone" and a surprisingly affectionate take on Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams," anticipating a time when the Dixie Chicks and Little Big Town would make the Mac a touchstone of modern country. As he is now, Adams was then both ahead of and behind his time.