It’s 30 years since Canada’s Cowboy Junkies created the template for alt-country on their second album, The Trinity Session, a hushed reimagining of rock and bluegrass standards and their own funereal songs. Much has changed in the intervening decades – they were dropped by <person>Geffen</person> in 1998 and haven’t recorded for a major label since – but the band’s faith in rootsy sounds is unwavering, as their first LP in six years illustrates. It finds the Junkies in meditative mode, revisiting their past and searching for connections in a callous, superficial world. “I don’t want to see your shining teeth/ Show me your bruised and battered heart,” sings <person>Margo Timmins</person> on the standout, Shining Teeth, a spare tale of anguish steeped in violent imagery.
Musically, too, there are tempestuous moments (Missing Children; Sing Me a Song), but the quartet only soar when the lights are dimmed and ambience takes precedence over energy. Full of yearning (“If we could just sit on those wooden stairs again”), the lovely Wooden Stairs pairs a shimmering guitar with <person>Timmins</person>’s plaintive voice, resulting in a record that is delicate, undemanding, but never too cosy.