How nice to ask that, Bryan. How’s It Goin? Not well. His latest album follows on a consistent but concerning period for the Canadian rocker, whose sentimentality is tied to such simplicity. From his proclamation of being the greatest rock and roll star of his generation when he has one and a half hits from that same period to this, where Adams puts on his best folksy Bob Dylan impression and hammers out more platitudes that didn’t fit on Roll With the Punches. It’s a novel concept, inspiring the masses. You have to be broad enough to appeal to everyone and yet that punctures the point of having a message worth sharing. Adams isn’t saying anything you haven’t heard before, but when has he? His opening, title track and the follow-up, Highway 16, feel so entrenched in his influences yet totally stripped of their value as pieces of art. Adams writes of his home country, and despite his love of Canada, it never comes through here.
How’s It Goin’ is better than the rest of Adams’ releases this decade, though that isn’t a particularly high bar. His instrumental work has that soft Americana flourish despite not being about that place at all. He writes of British Vancouver, of Canada’s stance against the current state of American politics, but it never feels all that much as though there’s a point to it. Just flipping through the buzzwords of politically adjacent rock. There are a few moments of inspiration in the instrumental choices, particularly the moody turn taken on Diesel and Dirt, but whatever vocal filters have been added to Adams’ vocals there sounds as though the mood has been punctured. Everything just feels hollow and in an already surface-level world, where experiences worth having are fewer and farther between than ever before, hearing a long-serving rock and roll musician fiddle around with nothing much to say is hardly an hour well spent. But it’s what Adams is trying to say at times, that’s what matters most.
He dabbles in history with The Battle of Lundy’s Lane and The Ballad of Terry Fox but his writing is so weak that the very clear emotional investment Adams has in Canadian history just doesn’t transfer. The sense of union and sentimentality heard on 51st State doesn’t feel all that honest. Adams puts down the Trump government again, and rightly so, but does so by suggesting Canada is a united front where the population is one and the same, standing tall alongside one another. It’s hard to accept that any country has a population in step with one mission in mind. But Adams believes so, and continues such a thought process on the loose and instrumentally dire When Canada Joined Newfoundland. Enough instrumental variation to suggest there’ll be change and putting truth to power, but no such moment occurs here. Not a punchy moment, not a part where Adams feels like he has a message that can be expanded on.
That’ll be no surprise to those well-versed in his recent works. Adams struggles to bring nuance to rock and roll, but here he manages to do a little bit more than he has in recent years. It comes through instrumental variation, a pop-adjacent structure to the likes of Iron Ribbon at least means there’s some differences as the album grumbles on. Iron Ribbon though feels like the noise a lazy Mumford and Sons studio session would produce. Adams is well of the mark with a lot of this material and knowing this simplicity is heartfelt and believed in is a touch embarrassing. He needs deeper meaning, stronger instrumental flourishes, and a point that goes beyond the wide and broad sense of kicking against those in power. There’s a post-Born in the U.S.A. appeal to be found on The Bridge, but Adams is hamming it up too much with this presentation as a hopeful patriot calling for people to come together. Sappy, a little dull, and beyond the realm of possibility is what it is. Pretty poor music, too.
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