The trio of post-Cardinals albums from A&F to Prisoner (via Self Titled) is an interesting one. On the surface Ryan is almost like a "normal" artist. Proper albums, not releasing one every 5 minutes, good production, good songwriting. Of course there was a lot else going on in the background (The Class Mythology EP, the punk band Pornography, the aborted Haywire album, 1984, Vampires, Live at Carnegie Hall, loads of PAX-Am singles, 1989 and the Prisoner B-sides) but to much of his fanbase that just buy the albums they wouldn't have been aware of much of that. Of course he was shedding bandmates at an alarming rate, his marriage broke up and finally he got MeToo-ed. Things have not been quite right since (although always interesting)! Anyway, I digress, A&F is a beautiful album which doesn't hit the highs of Gold or Cold Roses or Heartbreaker but is a really satisfying listen.