Equal parts creative, prolific and erratic, singer/songwriter Ryan Adams recently announced he's retiring from music indefinitely. But considering his work with seminal alt-country act Whiskeytown and his 11 releases in nine years, it's not like he didn't leave behind his fair share of material. Thankfully, if his newest release with his capable backing band The Cardinals entitled "Cardinology" is his last album, it's good to know that he left listeners on a high note.

This is Adams' second album he's released since swearing off drugs and alcohol and what his first clean-and-sober album, "Easy Tiger," should have been. While "Tiger" had some stand-out tracks, it was his most commercial record since 2001's "Gold" and was a mostly unbalanced record.

Not "Cardinology." The album takes the looseness and musicianship displayed by Adams and the Cardinals in 2005's "Cold Roses" and smartly compresses it into expertly-crafted pop structure, smartly covering Adams' favorite musical territories.

Whether it's the sweet, steel-guitared gospel country of "Born Into A Light," the slithery groove and bluesy leads of "Fix It" or the ghostly harmonies of "Natural Ghost," it's been years since Adams' songs have been this consistent in their effectiveness. Even when Adams gets all garage rock God on "Magick" or channels his inner Bono on the slow-building theater-fillers like "Cobwebs," he and his band are firing on all cylinders without flying off the handles. His sobriety hasn't tamed his broken heart, but his tenor, which seems to stretch and hit those high notes more precisely than on his "drug" records, make even the most somber tracks sound hopeful.

Then again, no Adams album would be complete without a few cry-in-the-corner ballads. The dusty drag of "Evergreen" and the standard-issue piano dirge "Stop" have a previously-treaded feel that contrasts the rest of the album, making "Cardinology's" last few tracks the equivalent of a rolling stop. Plus, it's hard not to notice that a good portion of the songs don't shift past that mid-tempo third gear.

These complaints aside, "Cardinology" is Adams best record in years debunks any theories that Adams heartbreak + Adams drug use = great albums. Besides, 2005's mediocre, drug-induced "29" already proved that.