One doesn’t want to stir up any unpleasant rivalry here, particularly between two such close friends. But, to put it bluntly, The Heat is the album Ryan Adams was trying to make with Rock’n’Roll. This reviewer doesn’t actually believe that Adams’ last record was half as bad as Uncut’s esteemed editor, Allan Jones, made out in his crushing two-star review (Take 79, December 2003). Yet in making a record cut from remarkably similar sonic cloth, Malin has done so with mountains more panache and canyons of conviction.

Not that he’s in any way apeing his buddy. If anything, it seems to be the other way round. Adams produced Malin’s solo debut, 2002’s The Fine Art Of Self Destruction, and noted at the time that his prot