Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Cardinology

Official Release Date: October 28

The Verdict: From the intermittently productive blogger-novelist already responsible for an estimated third of the world's songs come twelve new songs! You already know what they sound like (like the Grateful Dead and Neil Young), but how are they? Pretty great, actually! The Cardinals are back, which means Cardinology feels like the happy medium between 2005's excellent Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Nights (rather than last year's slightly boring Easy Tiger), but with less jamming and sharper choruses. If you're (understandably) a few years behind on your Ryan Adams albums, you might just want to skip ahead to this one.