Coldwater documents where Shannon McNally has been since Katrina—namely, settling down in Mississippi, starting a family and finding a stable band. For the occasion, she recut “Bolder Than Paradise” not because the song needs it, but because the version presents it as an ensemble piece, not a showcase for her voice or Dave Easley’s guitar (as it became on North American Ghost Music). On the album, the late Jim Dickinson gave his last performance as her piano player, but he settles into the group sensitive to what the songs require, often intentionally disappearing into the texture of the song.

Not surprisingly, the hill country blues figure prominently here as songs groove on minimal changes, which suits McNally well. The skeletal framework allows her songs to become trances, stories that could come from last week, last year, last decade or last century. They bring to mind early 1970s movies with Rudy Wurlitzer screenplays, where outsiders search for homes and communities they themselves have doubts that they’ll find, and nothing underscores that more than Coldwater’s first line: “Wrong side of the road / how did I get here this time?” The vagabond theme seems appropriate for McNally, whose muse has taken her around the country. It brought her to New Orleans and took her to Mississippi, and documenting this moment is valuable because it’ll likely take her somewhere else before long.