Published on Jul 16, 1998
In case some of you haven’t realized, happy music is back in
full, skatty swing. I’ve said this before, and this intro could
have very well been lifted off another review I did earlier. And I
do admit, yes, I’ll bob my head to the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy or the
Squirrel Nut Zippers. But with groups like Cleopatra and singers
like Brandy around, little room is left on the radio for music that
fits a mood that is far less than bliss.
I don’t want to start a zoot-suit riot! I just got a speeding
ticket, my friends went fishing this weekend without inviting me
and I’ve worked with so many assholes at work, my head is throbbing
after 5 p.m. Fortunately for people like me, the Cowboy Junkies are
still around. They’ve never made a happy album. It’s not sad music
like Morrissey where you pout, it’s sulking music. You’re in a funk
and all you want to do is stew in it.
Miles From Our Home, the latest album from the Junkies and
the second on their new label, Geffen, retains their dark, barren
sound. In the liner notes, the band explains how they spent last
year:living in a 125-year-old Mill House and taking contemplative
walks. One relative and a good friend of theirs (Townes Van Zandt)
died while this album was being recorded. The brother and sister
combo of Margo and Michael Timmins had a lot of material to make an
album that could make Richard Simmons contemplate suicide.
While many songs on
Miles From Our Home focus on loss, there are a lot of sunny
sides to the album. The title track and “New Dawn Coming” once
again feature a new technique for the Junkies: an electric guitar
riff that is solid. One more interesting thing about the title
track, dost I hear a bit of Smashing Pumpkins in that song? It
seems like bassist Peter Timmins got really hooked on the bass rift
of “1979”.
Lyrically,
Miles From Our Home is incredible. I can’t remember a more
solidly written Cowboy Junkies album. “Good Friday” and “Those
Final Feet” are great examples of this. Michael Timmins may have
been writing this for his departed friends, but the line, “You said
never to grow old / but you forgot to tell me how,” cut through at
any level if you have lost someone close to you. Margo Timmins’s
gorgous delivery propels this line like a tightly sprung
harpoon.
Potholes do show up during this beautiful ride of a record,
though. Just as I’m about to give my “best songwriter” of the year
to Michael, a couple of songs lyrics come off as half-finished. In
“Darkling Days”, the main chorus is “The beautiful is not
chosen/The chosen becomes beautiful”…yeah? Sorry, that line
belongs on Natalie Merchant’s new one. Not the Junkies. And as long
as I’m venting on lyrical unevenness, what is the recent
gutter-mouth pleasure that Margo Timmins delights in? One chorus in
this album is, “Who gave that power to that fucker up there?” But
I’m nitpicking again. The only reason these two examples stand out
so much is that the rest of the album is so well written.
Miles From Our Home is a more electric album than
Lay It Down, their last album. It is also a better album
than that one. One criticism the Cowboy Junkies constantly endure
is that they’re repeating the same formula that they made their
classic
The Trinity Session album from. One listen to this album
refutes that claim entirely. Still, the Junkies are not for
everyone.
For someone who needs a relaxing, yet edgy album to sulk in on a
Sunday morning, this album is perfect. The first two weeks of
summer vacation have passed, now is the summer of discontent for
broke students out there. And
Miles From Our Home is the perfect soundtrack for those
emotional low points this summer.