Rules of Travel

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The Very Best of Rosanne Cash

It’s oddly coincidental that Rosanne Cash’s first No. 1 country hit was “Seven Year Ache.” As it turns out, it’s been seven long years since her previous album, 1996’s 10 Song Demo, and though she’d written an album’s worth of songs after that, her voice suddenly gave out due to a polyp on her vocal chords. Thanks to voice therapy, Cash was able to resume singing and recording, and the result is the hauntingly beautiful Rules of Travel. Tastefully produced by husband John Leventhal and featuring guest appearances by Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle, Teddy Thompson, and Johnny Cash, the album is a showcase for Cash’s trenchant, soul-baring songs about love and mortality. Nearly every song is infused with a brooding melancholy, even the ones with sweet musical hooks (“Closer Than I Appear,” “I’ll Change For You”). When you hear the poignant “September When It Comes,” a duet with her father and one of the album’s highlights, you can’t help but be stirred hearing them sing, “When the shadows lengthen and burn away the past/they will fly me like an angel to a place where I can rest.” Rules of Travel is an impressive musical return from one of our most gifted singer-songwriters–and her voice, by the way, sounds as good as ever. –David Hill