The fifth installment in Rick Rubin's "American Recordings" series of Johnny Cash albums (a sixth and final one will be coming out next year), is, unfortunately, the first to be released posthumously. While not quite up to the standards of the last set (or the first), A Hundred Highways nevertheless presents another fine example of the voice and artistry that have made Cash a truly legendary figure in music for over half a century. Like the other albums in this series, the focus is placed squarely on THAT VOICE, a little weaker and more cracked than we have heard it previously, with some songs consisting only of Johnny accompanied by an acoustic guitar, while others add minimal backing like drums, keyboards, and additional guitars. Perhaps too fittingly, six of the first seven songs, including two Cash originals, center squarely on the concept of death and the Lord. Indeed, two of the songs, one by Cash and the other by Hank Williams, invoke the same image of a casket on a train. Further, the text of "God's Gonna Cut You Down" is evident from the title (e.g., "You can run a long time, but sooner or later God's gonna cut you down), and Cash infuses Bruce Springsteen's "Further On Up The Road" with a foreboding about with whom that meeting is to be with, that is largely absent from Springsteen's own version. However, and again like the other albums in the Rubin/Cash discography, not all is darkness and gloom. Cash's cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" is brilliant and affecting in its longing for connection, and four of the last five songs on the album similarly invoke the beauty and importance of love. Of course, given the context, Rubin closes the album with a final meditation on death, "I'm Free From The Chain Gang Now," with this one being more a celebration than a lamentation about the end everyone eventually faces. While there is nothing to rival the power of "Hurt" on his previous album, Cash's voice, however weakened it may be, nevertheless conjures up the experience and emotions of a life passionately lived. This is something that is rarely heard in contemporary "pop" music, and indeed was rarely heard in much of Cash's own work throughout the 70's and 80's. Let us thank Rick Rubin for creating the environment that allowed Cash to reconnect with his artistry over the last years of his life. We are all the richer for it.

El Perro Del Mar is Scandanavian singer and musician Sarah Assbring. The key element that makes this album truly affecting is its joining together of disparate elements. The primary musical focus is on sounds, such as 60's girl-group harmonies, chiming bells, and beautiful melodic hooks, all usually associated and paired with lyrics of uplift and joy. While the subjects of the songs, concerning such things as parties, candy, and puppy dogs, at first seem to match up appropriately with these sounds, one is quickly aware that, however sweetly the words may be sung (and they are sung very sweetly, indeed), they focus largely on feelings of pain, loneliness, and melancholy. In addition, the production adds its own disparities, as each song is full of echo and multi-layered vocals, but the instrumentation is almost always extremely spare, usually consisting only of light percussion and keyboards. It is as if El Perro Del Mar takes the 60's girl-group "mini-symphony" template and turns it instead into a "minimalist symphony". In sum, the union of musical and lyrical approaches seemingly at odds with one another works brilliantly here, making this album a unique and compelling listen.