T. Hardy Morris named his third solo album Dude, the Obscure as an homage to Thomas Hardy’s 1895 novel Jude, the Obscure , a book that tackled themes of class struggle and religious identity. Deep stuff. Hardy’s latest isn’t as heady as that, but still dives into subjects that the Dead Confederate co-founder has touched on in the past, but never to this extent. Like his previous solo albums, he’s still favoring country-folk arrangements, this time with help from the musical couple of Deer Tick’s John McCauley and Vanessa Carlton on backing vocals. The result is something shockingly great, if you’re in a certain sort of mood. Throughout the album’s 11 tracks, Morris sounds like a broken man on his way to recovery, in both the spiritual sense and with the rest of the world. Throughout tracks like “Cheating Life, Living Death” he mostly repeats the song title over the course of four minutes, like a spiritual chant to a higher power (or himself). On the upbeat, warped rocker “Homemade Bliss,” his nasally croon shines through as he confesses, “Call it content, call it ignorance/ I call it homemade bliss/ And I love you.” The album’s standout song is the soft ballad “The Night Everything Changed,” a pedal-steel lined number that could be about a broken love or a broken band: Morris’s voice sounds nostalgic, as he recalls different cities and different benders that clearly left a mark for the future. But paradoxically, Dude, the Obscure is just the opposite, as it feels like an album made from a songwriter finding new ground and a new path ahead.