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Album review: Graham Nash, ‘This Path Tonight’

Love and mortality weigh heavily on Graham Nash, 74, throughout his deeply personal new record tracing the tentative steps toward spiritual renewal. The path navigated by the folk-rock veteran — still in fine voice — is the road to rediscovery: an aging man searching for new truths through love as twilight nears. With producer Shane Fontayne adding dimension and tension to the music, Nash’s first album of originals in 14 years is marked by hope and possibility shadowed by loss. This is most apparent with the fiercely introspective journey toward love’s rewards, “Myself at Last”: “When all is said and done/ it’s hard to count the cost.” At times the lyrics are infused with the wonder of youthful desire (“when I turn my eyes toward you my quiver feels so full”). But the songs are grounded by the acknowledgment of time’s merciless march. “At the end I guess nothing matters,” Nash muses despairingly on “Back Home,” making this wise song cycle’s passionate quest for fulfillment even more poignant. KEN CAPOBIANCO

ESSENTIAL “Myself at Last”


Ken Capobianco can be reached at franznine@live.com.