Ryan Adams Prisoner
Album stream , Feb 14, 2017

"Adams assembles a stunning scrapbook that captures heartbreak in an intimate array of snapshots, a collection that marks his most accomplished record since Heartbreaker."

100 % Consequence of Sound

"Mostly though, Adams seems possessed by the same spirit that gets into his pal Taylor Swift when she’s hurt. He sounds like he’s savoring how full of life his music is, no matter what it took to make it so. He hasn’t just turned misery into art; he’s turned it into joy."

91 % The A.V. Club

"Prisoner doesn’t differ enough from its recent predecessors to stand out as a singular mid-career achievement for the ever-prolific songwriter, but it’s one of Adams’ most fully-realized, sturdy collections to date, and quite possibly his finest record of the past decade."

91 % Entertainment Weekly

"Prisoner isn’t a heartbreak record--it’s potentially the heartbreak record, for my generation at least. Turns out sadness really is quite the currency."

90 % Drowned In Sound

"Prisoner is an album filled with Adams reconciling his doubts and fears about life and love with his faith in music and the power of song. And ultimately--thankfully--music wins out over heartbreak in the end."

85 % The Line of Best Fit

"The album tails off after a strong start. Lyrically though, and as a view into Adams’ psychopathology, Prisoner is nothing short of fascinating."

80 % Clash Music

"Here he turns in a set of fine, affecting songs, from the 80s soft rock of Anything I Say to You Now and Do You Still Love Me?, to the more introspective We Disappear, which recalls Paul Westerberg at his most intimate."

80 % The Observer (UK)

"Adams does his job just well enough on this album that we’re willing to join him on that downward spiral and maybe, as listeners, locate the catharsis that eludes the lonely “I” living the songs."

80 % American Songwriter

"It's not a record that wallows in hurt, it's an album that functions as balm for bad times."

80 % AllMusic

"Adams is not breaking new ground with Prisoner, but it seems churlish to quibble when he’s at the peak of his powers."

80 % The Guardian

"Prisoner is an album that must have been tough for Adams to write and record, but ends up sounding like one of the great break-up albums of recent times."

80 % musicOMH.com

"Prisoner isn’t quite up to the career-best standards of its predecessors, but it’s a remarkably focused and effective successor nonetheless."

80 % New Musical Express (NME)

"Prisoner works well as a deep-winter heartbreak album, with acoustic guitars and ruminations on loss cutting through the cold air."

80 % PopMatters

"Prisoner is also one of Adams's most sonically artful albums to date."

80 % Slant Magazine

"It’s full of layers and little emotions, rather than just being a slave to the bigger issues and emotions, and that’s what makes it authentic."

75 % The 405

"It’s a beautiful sounding collection, no question. Sometimes, though, Adams’ exacting, just-so approach to the sonics undercuts the power of his lyrics."

73 % Paste Magazine

"The contrast between his interiority and the sturdiness of his compositions is striking. So, too, is the contrast between this album and Heartbreaker, his lauded solo debut. Ranking breakup records is a ghoul’s errand; suffice to say that loss was Heartbreaker’s fuel. Here, it’s turned to fumes."

70 % Spin

"Sometimes he can almost be too faithful to his heroes: "Haunted House" is like a reconstructed Tunnel of Love, right down to its titular metaphor. But when the songwriting feels as personal and urgent as the scholarship (see the raw-bone heartland-rocker "Doomsday"), he gets close to the magnum opus of his dreams."

70 % Rolling Stone

"In spite of the abundance of retro rock references, Adams' gut-spilling lyricism and vulnerable vocal performances (a waver here, a crack and a tremble there) still give Prisoner enough heart to steer it clear of sounding like a washed-up cliché."

70 % Exclaim

"[Ryan Adams draws] from a well of sadness and confusion that seems only to have deepened by the time he gets to the album’s closer."

70 % Los Angeles Times

"It’s another down-the-middle, crowd-pleasing Ryan Adams record at a time when that crowd was expecting him to bring the heat."

62 % Pitchfork

"Prisoner sticks to the well-trodden highways, whether it’s the echoes of U2 in the grand guitar stabs and earnest vocal tone of opener “Do You Still Love Me”, or the spangly, flanged guitars and relaxed sense of space that lend “Anything I Say To You Now” the laidback stadium sound of The Police."

60 % The Independent (UK)

"Though there’s some absolutely gorgeous production that recalls the lush sound and synthscapes of 80s rock, the songwriting is weighed down by clichés."

60 % NOW Magazine

"The thing is, by Adams’ standards, too many of the songs sound slightly underwritten."

60 % Record Collector