It's been eight years since Ryan Adams parted ways with the remains of his North Carolina country/rock band Whiskeytown, whose revolving-door membership was largely a function of young Adams's out-of-control ego and, ahem, uneven temperament, making it difficult to fit anyone else onto the band's stages, tour buses, or albums. In that time, Adams has adopted any number of personae in his quest for rock 'n' roll world domination. These are, chronologically:

The Next Dylan, a historic kiss of artistic death (you could ask previous candidates like Springsteen, Prine, Hiatt, and most recently, Oberst) but nevertheless the crown he was handed after the release of his 2000 solo debut, Heartbreaker, by far the best thing he's created artistically and still the primary reason why anyone cares about what he does.

The Next Westerberg (see previous), the scruffy enfant terrible whose talent for gold-plated slop-rock excused any number of egregious asshole episodes, including an ugly confrontation with a fan who taunted him by requesting Bryan Adams's "Summer of '69" during a gig in Nashville. Assigned following his 2001 album Gold (which included the minor hit "New York, New York") and all the rumored "unreleased gems" that the insanely prolific Adams was unable to push upon the public during this period.

Jerry Garcia Apologist/Urban Deadhead, earned after Adams released three albums in 2005, two of which (Cold Roses and its lesser, none-more-black cousin 29, a self-obsessed reflection on Adams's age at the time it was recorded) so closely mimicked the Dead's Workingman's Dead/American Beauty phase that he began smoking working with Phil Lesh during downtime to cobble together a presentable version of the Dead's classic "Wharf Rat."

Faux-punk, an excuse to flaunt his cred-enhancing Black Flag tattoos and crank the amps to 11, evidenced by the release of two pseudonymous EPs from the Finger, a project recorded with fellow NYC malcontent Jesse Malin featuring the mischievous rawk-dude duo Warren Peace and Irving Plaza (geddit?). The pint-sized romantic gadabout also dated Parker Posey, Leona Naess, Beth Orton, and about half the daily roster of TMZ.com during this period.

DJ Reggie, the mysterious (and totally addled, to judge from the recent New York Times story in which the newly sober Adams copped to years of "destructive drug abuse" that included daily speedball dosage) figure responsible for posting an ADD-afflicted array of hiphop material on Adams's website over the past several months, some of which is actually promising and the vast majority of which has been so horrible as to constitute a gigantic middle finger flown directly at Puffy, et al. (i.e., "If I can do this legitimately, ya'll need to find another line of work"). Sported a Unabomber-like beard/disguise during this phase while somehow managing to produce Willie Nelson's latest release.


So. Which Ryan Adams is most likely to show up at the Moore Theatre this week?

If his just-released Easy Tiger (his last album for Lost Highway before becoming a free agent) is any indicator, we'll likely see any/all of these masked men trot across the stage at various points during the evening. You can also make the case that we'll be treated to Rescue Me Ryan, the Cold Turkey Warrior recently cleaned up by yet another hopeful ex-model girlfriend who took pity on him as a reclamation project with limitless commercial upsides, once she'd replaced his homeless-guy getup with the requisite TRL-friendly Diesel-wear. If nothing else, you have to admit that Adams's relentless self-mythologizing is savvier than most of his peers.

Tiger is to Adams's back catalog what the Eagles oeuvre is to late country-rock progenitor (and Adams's hero—the two share a birthday) Gram Parsons: a watered-down compilation of all his signature moves, distilled into one easy-listening package. There are trace elements of his Westerberg era, spit-flecked gobs from the what-the-hell punk, and obvious examples of Adams biting from his considerable back catalog of unreleased work. Taken as a whole, the album feels like nothing less than an effort to construct the hit Lost Highway always wanted but Adams stubbornly refused to release.

There's no doubting Cryin' Ryan's considerable talent—the guy is a human jukebox and, if judicious editing were applied, may yet have a classic album stuffed somewhere up his sleeve. But Easy Tiger—accompanied as it is by the ostensibly welcome news that Adams may not be the one responsible for his own demise—just ain't the one. recommended