A fifteen-year plus career has done little to lift the spirits of Canadian alt-country rockers, the Cowboy Junkies. Although capable of stirring an fine old industry buzz on occasions, the slow, moody and frankly depressing Junkies, sometimes fail to really ignite.
Louder and more guttural than their gentle gossamer origins would have ever suggested, their ninth studio album, One Soul Now might pass for a Courtney Love produced Emmylou Harris. And if Jack White can do it with Loretta Lynn, why not Courtney?
Dirty, grungey swelling guitars, cowbell beats and rootsy Hammond combine to create a sweaty, gruelling atmosphere of sustained mental disaster and aching loss, with title track ‘One Soul Now’ spiralling and dilating like their very own ‘Heart Shaped Box’. Mazzy Star are good starting point if you want to draw comparisons, but with a Johnny Cash blueprint rather than a Jesus and The Mary Chain one. Pop-shakers like ‘Stars Of Our Stars’ may twinkle a little unusually within the cruel, bluesey context of the rest of the album – but it’s a far from inauspicious direction.
Occasionally explosive. Occasionally challenging. Always absorbing.