April 16, 1997 Kathy Mattea has fought through a period of "artistic angst" and emerged with a renewed commitment to her music -- and a superb new CD.

Love Travels, her first studio album since 1994's Walking Away A Winner, brings together all of the singer's strengths -- poignant, emotionally charged songs about family, faith and the power of love; an uncluttered, rootsy sound that encompasses country, folk and pop; and, of course, a full-bodied voice that lays her soul bare.

However, Mattea scrapped the album's initial sessions in 1995 because she felt ambivalent about the music, about the album, about the direction of her career.

"It was awful! It was terrible! I felt detached from the thing I loved, even as I was doing it. That's when I knew something was wrong," Mattea tells in a telephone interview.

The 37-year-old artist admits the pressure to compete with the flood of young, midriff-baring country starlets had "robbed me of my ability to enjoy the (music-making) process. I didn't want to get out of bed; I didn't want to make the record; I didn't feel like I had anything to draw from."

Mattea got permission from her record company to abort the sessions; she then embarked on a period of soul-searching. In the end, she decided to follow her artistic instincts regardless of how they might impact her record sales and radio airplay.

"I thought: If I try to reinvent myself, try to be younger, try to compete with all these new people coming in, I am going to flush down the toilet what I cherish most about my career," she says.

"I see my job as an artist. I made that choice. I think I have good taste. I think being myself is enough."

Indeed. The West Virginia native has impeccable taste in material which has sustained her career since 1983 and has earned her a loyal core following. Her 1988 hit, Where've You Been, is perhaps her best known and most beloved song; it's a heart-wrenching reflection on institutionalization of the elderly.

"I get afraid sometimes a song like Where've You Been, which touched so many people, would not be able to survive today," Mattea says.

She worries too much new country music devalues the importance of lyrics that seriously deal with the human experience.

"The danger comes when everybody gets lazy. It's so easy to tap your foot and forget to listen to the words.... With great songs, you have to listen to the words and think about what they're saying.

"The more people hear ear-candy, the harder it is for them to focus. I'm afraid we're going to kill the thing that makes our genre so special."

At least Mattea is now determined not to kill the thing that makes her special.

"God put us here in this world to manifest our individual natures.... If we explore that thing that is intrinsically us, that is where happiness and fulfilment comes from."