Music Review: Cowboy Junkies - All That Reckoning

Canada’s Cowboy Junkies have become one of the world’s most revered bands by whispering while others screamed. The group’s quiet brilliance first gained global acclaim with 1988’s The Trinity Session and the quartet’s subdued rock and country-folk sound has remained remarkably consistent ever since, with occasional segues into noisier moments. On its fine 16^th album, the Junkies—singer Margo Timmins, her brothers Michael and Peter and family friend Alan Anton—shift between loud and soft sounds and personal and social subjects. “The Things We Do to Each Other” is a pulsing, politically charged number that warns how fear can easily turn to hate. “Sing Me a Song” is a 1960s-style rocker, complete with fuzzed-out guitar solo, while the title track charts a relationship’s emotional twists and turns. Even at its quietest, as on “Mountain Stream,” the Junkies still pack a wallop, thanks to the band’s palpable passion and Margo’s entrancing vocals.