Published on Apr 9, 1998
You wake with an initial wince. Your head throbs and your mouth
is so dry that you are afraid that a Kleenex swap over your lips
would cut them. You also find out why your stomach is so
uneasy:there’s a Hardees bag that is resting on your couch.
I’ve been there. I was there Tuesday. So I went into damage
control mode. First, brew a pot of coffee. Second, take a hot
shower. Finally, grab a paper and put in the Cowboy Junkies. Time
will do the rest and pleasing results are usually the outcome.
The Cowboy Junkies have been around for about 15 years. With
each album, they’ve made some slight deviations from their landmark
The Trinity Sessions album. Bands such as U2, R.E.M. and
Rush have been around longer and have reinvented themselves a
couple of times in the process. But the Junkies seem content with
their formula.
And their formula works. The makeup of two brothers and a sister
makes you wonder how they’ve been able to put sibling rivalry
behind and release some of the most consistantly beautiful albums
tailor made for the somberist of moods.
“Q” magazine classified the band’s music as, “new country
combined with elements of blues”.
Lay It Down pretty much confirms the magazine’s statement.
The tempo is a notch up from
Black Eyed Man and
Pale Sun Crecent Moon. Still, it’s no surprise that the
cover of the album shows each band member wearing black. “The fire
that burnt inside of me/Has turned to ash the tortured tree/That
grows behind the anguished sea,” Margo Timmins sings on “Speaking
Confidentially”. And that’s one of the more upbeat songs on the
album.
Credit the Junkies-at least they finally found a way to write a
catchy pop sound that was theirs. They did that with “A Common
Disaster”. Guitarist Michael Timmins goes electric on this song,
creating a groovy riff that’s impossible to shake once you hear
it.
As always, Margo Timmins is the reason to buy the album. She may
be limited in her range but no female singer out there puts such a
complex face on misery.
Are the Cowboy Junkies mood music? Yes. You either have to be
working through a depression or be so happy that your psyche can
handle the sadness in their songs.
Lay It Down has just enough variety to make it stand out.
Coincidentally, it’s one of their best albums. And unlike
Space Heater by The Reverend Horton Heat, it does make a
difference if this album is in your player and not another Junkies
album.