His & Hearse
Roseanne Cash
Black Cadillac
(Capitol)
As the title suggests, death haunts Roseanne Cash’s 10th album, particularly in the spirits of her mother, stepmom June Carter, and father, Johnny, whose voice kicks things off.
But after that initial “Roseanne, c’mon,” the show is entirely hers, and a textbook example of how to make an album about loss. Country music and tributes as separate entities are already covered in gummy sentimentality, but somehow Cash pulls away from her parents with dignity intact. Never so much mournful as pragmatic, the title track (“It’s a black heart of pain that I’m wearing/that suits me just fine”) tosses in some “Ring Of Fire” horns for effect, but it’s in “The World Unseen” and “Dreams Are Not My Home” where she sheds her self-imposed daddy’s-little-girlishness, and does proud the family name.
— Steve Forstneger
