Like everything that’s been written about the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, this bio must begin with the obligatory disclaimer: Nope, the band members are not the illegitimate offspring of the Man in Black, and yup, Johnny’s OK with their appropriation of his name.

Further confusing things, the Bastard Sons, who are led by writer-singer Mark Stuart, sound nothing like Cash and hail from that honky-tonk hotbed, San Diego. What’s more, their new album, Distance Between, is miles of straight road from BSOJC’s debut, Walk Alone, an old-time country & western record that fully evidenced Stuart’s command of the cryin’-in-your-beer ballad and the 18-wheeler highway song. Distance Between, by contrast, feels like it’s been ripped whole from the American mythopoetic fabric. Rather than a reinvention, the new album represents an impressive broadening of the musical and emotional palate