Last year, a newly sober Ryan Adams went public with his recovery, in the form of an album (Easy Tiger) and an EP (Follow the Lights) full of candid songs that made his nasal twang sound more vulnerable. The process is ongoing, as they say: Cardinology lays even deeper into the language of rehabilitation, grace and renewal. Luckily those themes apply equally to the hazards of love—Adams’ ever-fertile songwriting terrain—and so the lead single, “Fix It,” doesn’t sound merely like a Post-it to himself. And as the title of the album suggests, this is a group effort, an affirmation of Cardinal principles. For the most part, that means less acoustic lilt and more bruising force. But the closer is a piano ballad called “Stop,” which finds Adams staring down his own dark need, with a shudder. “If the honey makes you sick, honey,” he sings, “there is a line that must be walked.”

DOWNLOAD “Go Easy,” “Natural Ghost”