Album: Ryan Adams

Gold, Lost Highway

Difficult second album? And what difficulty might that be, then? Making a mockery of the usual tapering-off syndrome that afflicts most artists' sophomore efforts, Ryan Adams' Gold outstrips even the high expectations aroused by last year's tremendous solo debut Heartbreaker.

Clad in a sleeve whose inverted Stars and Stripes flag surely offers wry commentary on the frequent comparisons between Adams and Springsteen, it's an album that affirms the arrival of a major talent, and when the dust settles at the year's end it will almost certainly be regarded as one of the defining musical events of the era.

What's especially remarkable about Adams is his apparently effortless combination of quantity and quality. Despite being virtually his third double-album in under a year (including the posthumous Whiskeytown swansong Pneumonia), Gold is comprised almost entirely of standout tracks, from the effervescent opening rush of "New York, New York" (no, not the show tune) to the languid lullaby "Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd" which draws things to a close 16 tracks later.

As the titles suggest, the album reflects Adams' emotional journey from east coast to west: though clearly inspired by the same traumatic love-split detailed so vividly in Heartbreaker, these songs portray a sensitive soul in recovery, still licking his wounds, but learning how to live again. A song such as the elegiac "Harder Now That It's Over" balances elegantly on the cusp of despair and hope, a not completely convinced Adams facing the future with reluctant optimism: "It's harder now that it's over/Now that the cuffs are off/And you're free/Free with a history".

Musically, Gold offers a bravura display of classic-rock styles, Adams displaying a magpie sensibility to shame even Noel Gallagher. The country-rock mode of his Whiskeytown days survives in songs such as "Somehow, Someday" and "Answering Bell", but elsewhere the tougher tones of The Who surface in the great declamatory opening chords to "New York, New York" and "Gonna Make You Love Me", while "Rescue Blues" and "Tina Toledo's Street Walkin' Blues" ape the gospel-country-blues raunch of Let It Bleed-era Rolling Stones.

There are echoes elsewhere of Elton John, Springsteen, Neil Young, Jimmy Webb and Stax soul, and several songs that elide smoothly between influences – most impressively the 10-minute "Nobody Girl", which starts out like The Band's "The Weight" and closes with a guitar coda reminiscent of Traffic's "Dear Mr Fantasy". But unlike most retro-rockers, Adams is so much more than the sum of his influences. He's blessed with an enviable gift for hooks and melodies, and a compelling vocal presence that marks him out from the crowd. Quite, quite brilliant.