The time is right for Rosanne Cash [ tickets ].

The biopic on her father, "Walk the Line," has renewed the public's interest in all things Cash. Lee Ann Womack has proven with her critically acclaimed and commercially successful "There's More Where That Came From" that there is room in the industry for mature, sophisticated and talented female country singers.

The final piece in the puzzle is "Black Cadillac." It's Cash's best CD since 1993's "The Wheel," and one that is loaded with potential radio hits. It's also loaded with enough real emotion and delicate songwriting to distance itself by a country mile from whatever else mainstream Nashville is likely to deliver in 2006.

Cash has issues, and she uses the studio like a therapist's office to address all that has gone on in her life over the last few years. The overriding theme of this album is loss, a subject that Cash is all too familiar with--having lost her father, mother and stepmother (June Carter Cash) within the space of two years. Yet, this album comes across more like a celebration of life than a funeral for family members.

The CD kicks into gear in a big way with the likable "Black Cadillac," one of the many songs on the album that seems addressed to her father. The most poignant ode to dear old dad comes with "I Was Watching You," which is full of both stories from childhood and more recent memories. The record also addresses the topic of faith--which is obviously a fluid, ever-changing thing in Cash's world--as the singer alternates between sounding hopeful ("God is in the Roses") and utterly lost ("World Without Sound").

My one complaint about the album is that it sounds overly produced. The heartfelt music would have been even more effective, at least to this critic's ear, if it had been served up in a rawer fashion. The flipside to that, however, is that the polish on "Black Cadillac" will certainly give it a better chance with mainstream country listeners.