The Cowboy Junkies began their career with a compilation of songs made famous by other artists, whether or not they bow to the inevitable creeping of age and finish on one remains to be seen, but judging by this inspired if unenergetic selection of songs it seems unlikely that they’ve finished squeezing the juice from the mango of life’s rich melancholy.
Off the road for months and with winter digging in deep the band decided that February 2005 might benefit from the cheery warming glow of music and the Swiss Family Timmins even extended the invitation to older brother John to sit in on the sessions with his customary guitar and banjo. The result is a brooding and intense selection of songs defined chiefly through their adherence to themes of war, violence, fear, greed, ignorance and loss. Sounds like 24 hours in the life of Jack Bauer? Well, you’d think that, wouldn’t you, but this is a far more drowsy affair with the flickering embers of Margo Timmins’ slurring and somnambulistic vocal tendencies almost dying like flames against the night and the sweet metallic whimpering of Bob Egan’s pedal steel guitar curling like a cat around them.
Whilst the covers of Springsteen’s ‘Brothers Under The Bridge’ and ‘One’ literally make it bleed, it’s the delicate, tender clarity which the band bring to George Harrison’s oft repeated ‘Isn’t It A Pity’ that really engage. Only on the rap assisted reworking of Lennon’s soulful yet abstaining ‘I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier’ do the band threaten to pull apart – but they just about pull it off.
Go placidly amid the noise and haste indeed.