Songs of the recollection

"Recording other people's songs and giving them a sound of their own is deeply ingrained in the Cowboy Junkies' working method, so it's no great surprise that they've chosen to release an album devoted entirely to covers ... As a singer, Margo Timmins has learned to adapt her understated murmur to a wide range of moods and melodic frameworks, and she's consistently lovely here, especially in her rueful takes on David Bowie's "Five Years" and Neil Young's "Love in Mind." Guitarist Michael Timmins has a gift for weaving expressive dissonance and electric accents into the folky vibe common to their performances, and the overdriven finale of "Five Years," the sudden showers of fuzz in Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down," and the reverb-enhanced feedback on "Ooh Las Vegas" attest to his status as an unsung hero of noise guitar".

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