So I have always been a fan of the Cowboy Junkies. I have seen them in concert a coupla times and have all of their cds. When Lay It Down came out in the early 90's I played it until a friend politely told me to kindly remove it from the cd player in my car or she'd do it for me...only not so kindly. So it amazes me that they released a new cd earlier this year and I never heard about it. So I picked it up on the way home from work today and popped it in the player on my way to the gym. Guys, you gotta go get it! It's like Cowboy Junkies squared! The cd is called End
At The End of Paths Taken and it is a cathartic epic. The central theme seems to be Family and all of the different aspects good and bad. From the review on their official website @
http://www.cowboyjunkies.com/ :
"You probably think you know what the new Cowboy Junkies record sounds like. You don’t. Yes, the trademarks are there. How could it be otherwise after two decades? But they’re all twisted, re-evaluated, renewed. Songs no longer draw life from the understated, almost unheard pulse of Alan Anton’s bassline, a sound that now propels undulating melodies on “Mountain” or “My Little Basquiat”. Anton almost switches places with Margo Timmins, still the most arresting voice in the game, yet buried deeper inside these songs, songs which create a surround sound universe of their own, be it from plaintive acoustics like “Someday Soon” or the kitchen sink overload of “Mountain”, where all hell breaks loose. Tomorrow never knew."
Reviewer Dave Bowler goes on to say:
"Having introduced listeners to new soundscapes, dissonant sounds, powerful emotional terrain, the second half of the record builds and builds, increasingly personal, intimate but wholly identifiable. “Follower” is a centrepiece, tracing the evolution from father to son, to son becoming father, scraps from Michael’s childhood, inklings from his future, one relationship becoming the other. “I can’t bear to hear his breathing, simply knowing what’s to come”. Is that the breath of a dying father, or a sleeping son, a life full of trials behind or before him? The closing, “Here you will always be, behind me, and you will not go away. Here I will always be, behind you, and I will never go away” is a perfect summation of the handing down of the generations, something picked up on again in “Mountain”, something they used to call a sound collage, mixing the Timmins’ father reading from his memoirs, all kinds of studio samples and sounds, wrenching strings, Margo Timmins wailing “How’d this mountain get so high?” into the abyss. If they hadn’t already come up with the phrase “sensory overload”, you’d have to invent it for this. "
I am so glad I discovered this just as the Fall closes in. The new cd, a glass of wine, a joint and a handful of twilight hours and I will be set. Seriously, get it!
