Ryan Adams: 29

The title is a reference to Adams' age when he wrote most of this - but followers of the mercurial singer-songwriter might joke it's a volume number.

Adams has released three albums this year, which means he already boasts a 10-LP back catalogue since his 2000 solo debut, Heartbreaker.

At this rate, to be an iPod owner and a Ryan Adams fan is a risky business.

But 29 is one of his best. It's closest in spirit to that debut, which remains - in my book at least - his outstanding set of songs.

That this is his best 2005 album is apparent soon enough.

While its immediate predecessors were longer and louder, this set of nine is big on ballads.

And it substitutes a confessional intimacy for the musical bluster of its forerunners.

It might start out - like Heartbreaker did - on the title track, a spikey rock'n'roll song which sounds like it's trying to pick a fight in a bar.

But from there it's largely into an extended bittersweet mope powered by little more than acoustic guitar or soft-pedal piano.

Throughout, Adams' lyrics feed off the regret of a man having an early mid-life crisis, worrying that his friends are behaving like adults when he's still living the highlife; or ruing his brushes with mortality.

It can wallow perhaps a little too deep, like on the melodramatic The Sadness with its flamenco flourishes and Adams' histrionic vocal.

But on the rest - whether he's doing bittersweet pedal-steel-accompanied country things on the lovely Carolina Rain or delivering some of the best ballads that Elton John never wrote on Blue Sky Blues and Starlite Diner - Adams is in inspired form.

It makes for one captivating morning-after-the-night-before set of songs.

Adams has tossed out some good albums this year. Here, he's finally released a great one.

Label: Lost Highway