Cowboy Junkies
One Soul Now

The legendary "Trinity Sessions"... Recorded in 1988 in just one day, with a single microphone inside a church in Toronto, they are one of the foundational albums of North American alternative country.

The Cowboy Junkies were born in Toronto, Canada: a land of forests, lakes, glaciers, and a land of great musicians and poets. Neil Young, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell...

In "One Soul Now" we are not far, except in years, from the aforementioned "Trinity Sessions." The album was released in 2004 and brings back the Timmins siblings in a state of creative grace. A few (well-chosen) sprinkles of sunny pop in some tracks: in the title track, in "My Wild Child" (which recalls, in the arrangement, "Monty Got A Raw Deal" by REM), in "The Slide", or even in "No Long Journey Home".

The other tracks, "From Hunting Ground To City Street" and "He Will Call You Baby" above all, move in perfect balance between blues and folk.

Blues and folk of crystal-clear melodic beauty: songs that ooze pathos with every note and every single word. A Margo Timmins in splendid form takes us by the hand and accompanies us into the desert (to be clear: not the desert of the soul) as in an exciting road-movie along the dusty roads of North America...

Upon its release, the album was enriched with an (unmissable) bonus CD containing five covers: "Thunder Road" by Springsteen, "Seventeen Seconds" by the Cure, "Lungs" by Townes van Zandt, "Darkness, Darkness" by Jesse Colin Young (stunning and poignant), and "Helpless" by Neil Young.

As far as I'm concerned, it's five stars, just like the "Trinity Sessions." The songs are all of extraordinary level, and the covers are personal reinterpretations that nonetheless do not detract from the originals.

See you soon from Perfectcircle.