Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams is releasing a new album. Rather, a new-old effort.

Between 2000 and 2008, the singer-songwriter released a new album a year -- and in 2005's case, three of them -- but 2006 stared out like a lost, scared child with no effort to call it's own.

But now we see there was "Orion" all along. In a post on Adams' website, it says that "Orion is Ryan Adams' first fully realized sci-fi metal concept album." It won't be released on CD, but instead in a vinyl + download format for and "extremely" limited pressing.

The personnel boasts Adams (under the moniker Dra), former Cardinal Jamie Candiloro on drums and synths and Dale Nixon on bass. Candiloro produced the set. It's up for $25, out May 24.

While Adams is better known for his folk- and country-infused solo tracks and for his stint as Whiskeytown frontman, he's been a long-lover of hard rock. In fact, back in 2006 as he was sobering up, he started slapping up webcasts of metal licks and 11 albums worth of heavy rock, jokey hip-hop and other wild mental meanderings.

"It was musical blogging, and I was just ripping on s**t," Adams told me back then. "It's not very good and wasn't meant to be anything more than just a laugh."

Liar. Looks like enough was cobbled together for what sounds like a pretty sweet set, 13 tracks with titles like "Ghoron, Master of War" and "Victims of the Ice Brigade." Sounds like good fun, which is precisely what Adams' last two efforts, "Easy Tiger" and "Cardinology" lacked: fun. Sorry race car fans.