Except in a broad sense -- folk music is a manifest influence on both -- Nancy Cassidy and Rita Hosking hardly sound identical. Both are California singer-songwriters, however, and both have a talent for lovely, acoustic melodies. None of their songs on either of these recordings is traditional, but each conveys the feeling of older musical forms as filtered through the ongoing revival. I've played these two CDs as often as any I've heard this year.

I have reviewed Hosking in this space previously, praising in particular her deeply affecting "Ballad for the Gulf of Mexico" (on her 2011 Burn), among the finest songs lamenting environmental and social abuse written in a century that has provided no shortage of material. Much of her new recording, For Real, is politically inflected in assorted ways. If it is never didactic, yet the points are made. "Maybe Elvis" is a sweetly sarcastic tribute to life in our post-fact nation, the sweetness rendering the sarcasm even more lashing. (If ever there was a time that an old blues lyric says it, If you see me laughing/ I'm laughing just to keep from crying does that now.) "For the Ride" is a steely rejoinder to one who has foolishly urged Hosking to just sit back and go along for the ride.

On the other side, "California" is a memorable love song to her native state adorned with a melody that sounds far older than it is. And speaking of melodies, "Do Me Up, Darlin'" claims one that stuck in my head for days and days without ever driving me crazy. It felt, oddly, like an old friend's comfort even though new to my life. On the other hand, "Six Seconds" is of no comfort whatever, a disturbingly specific account of a family tragedy and its consequences. It is hard to believe it is not a true story. If so, the creation of this powerful song under such circumstances has to be a testament to courage. It does not spare the listener either.

Stylistically, Hosking splits the difference between Tom Paxton and the late Kate Wolf. An unaccompanied, tradition-inflected Wolf song, "The Lilac & the Apple," closes the disc on a fittingly pastoral note. Nature figures prominently in Hosking's songs, along with the most rivetingly expressed human experiences and emotions.

Hosking produced For Real using settings -- acoustic guitar, mountain banjo, mandolin, accordion -- that would carry (and have often carried) oldtime ballads and hymns. Sometimes the juxtaposition of traditional instruments and modern views is jarring and anachronistic. Not here. Rather, quite the contrary. Like the most enduring music, it's at once inside the moment and outside it, a sound for whatever time there is.

Though new to me -- as much as I hear, I can't hear it all, alas -- Nancy Cassidy has been around for a while and even been covered, so I learn, by Bruce Springsteen. On River's Rising her focus is more conventional than Hosking's -- namely, love's fortunes and misfortunes -- but she transcends hackneyed sentiments with some striking, out-of-the-ordinary imagery.

She has a way of probing beneath the surface of things with the effective application of metaphor, whether it draws on water, storms, flight, time or space, all communicated via tunes that are not easily ignorable. I can't stress how rare this is in an era dominated by singer-songwriters who are usually more proficient at lyrics than tunes. I also like it that on occasion she isn't afraid to drop some of her creations into instantly recognizable folk-music landscapes, such as "He's Gone Away," which is about a hobo -- a figure not often encountered in 21st-century songs -- whose story plays out like a hundred years ago.

Ed Tree's production goes for fuller arrangements than Hosking's does, sort of reminiscent of what you'd hear on one of Linda Ronstadt's great 1970s albums. It still works.

I might add that both Cassidy and Hosking bring in a Pete Seeger-ish note toward the conclusions of their respective records, each with a song ("You're Perfect" and "Good People" respectively) affirming our common humanity. While -- don't get me wrong -- I am on board with our common humanity, it's hard not to sound sappy on the subject. So they sound sappy, okay? Better to be that, though, than to remain silent in the face of grave crimes against our fellow beings. Like, say, putting little children in cages.