Far too many Americans regard the Cowboy Junkies as this quirky, mysterious — but hip — Canadian quartet that recorded an album in a church and covered the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane.” This stifling, typically myopic vision dismisses the band as some classic-rock one-hit wonder and misses the bigger picture: that the Junkies recorded The Trinity Sessions 13 years ago, that they have just released their tenth album, Open (their best yet), and have been intact with the four original members for 16 years. (That their tour with Townes Van Zandt and their cut of “To Live’s To Fly” exposed him to a new generation also should not be forgotten.) Open allows Margo Timmins’s musical genius brother Michael to let loose an array of psychedelic feedback and raunchy riffs that propel, rather than bury, his sister’s hypnotic interpretations of his lyrics, which still dwell on creepy topics as well as on the quiet contemplations of life’s mysteries.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2001.