Adam James’ EP Firecrackers has been over a year in the making. Starting as a batch of demos that turned into an official record, James weathered the breakup of a significant relationship, a move to another city, and the loss of his voice during its creation. His vocal tracks were all recorded just after he’d begun singing again following months of vocal rest. Largely played and produced by James himself, the record showcases a lot of different moods, from the Stonesy-ode to a lady love on “Natural,”to the introspective gospel strains of “Lonely Like A Church On Saturday Night.” The tracks all have a different sound to them, yet they all have a thread that ties them together. James uses some of the tracks to examine the world outside rather than just personal issues. "Firecrackers" is a look at ageism and how silly it is to worry about getting older when there's nothing one can do about it, while "Working Man," written around the time of the auto industry bailouts, and is a scathing look at how working people get caught in the middle of disputes between company executives and the federal government. The name of the game here is variety. Variety in sound, variety in subject matter, variety in mood. James isn't trying to reinvent the wheel, but he is trying to put a bit of his own thing into the country genre that some have said is shopworn at this point. And this record is the first step on that road.