Sobriety agrees with Ryan Adams, giving him the one thing he's alwayslacked: focus. Easy Tiger suggested as much, with its tight, cleanlines supported by its rehab-celebrating publicity, but its 2008sequel, Cardinology, reveals that this straight and narrow path was nonew detour for Adams, but rather the main road. It's the first time inhis solo career that Adams has tread the same trail for two albums in arow, which only confirms the suspicion that now that Adams is sober,he's getting down to the business of being the troubadour he's alwaysaspired to be, assisted by a band so sympathetic to his style that he'snamed his album after them.

In a certain sense, Cardinology does play as a showcase for everythingthat Ryan Adams & the Cardinals can do: it's rooted in Deadsycountry-rock but frequently strays into '80s alt-rock territory,whether it's the sighing, romantic "Cobwebs" or how "Magick" echoeslike prime U2. The Cardinals shift moods with ease but Cardinologyisn't quite a showcase for how the band plays -- it's too intimate andtoo concentrated on the songs to be a record about the group itself,nor is it about Adams' range, as earlier records like Gold were. Thisis a very simple, classicist singer/songwriter album where the pleasureis within the songs themselves, how "Born into a Light" unfolds withunderstated grace, how "Let Us Down Easy" glides into itscall-and-response chorus, how "Natural Ghost" has a comforting spectralquality, how "Evergreen" skips delicately, how the details in "SinkShips" spill out to its loping beat.