The latest releases reviewed
COWBOY JUNKIES
Trinity Revisited
Cooking Vinyl
****
The Trinity Sessions is a seminal album in the illustrious history of Americana. Nineteen years ago this Canadian family band sloped into the downtown Toronto Church of the Holy Trinity and recorded what was to become one of the defining albums of the genre, and arguably their finest moment. And so to mark this upcoming anniversary they sloped back in, this time accompanied by a dishevelled Ryan Adams, a predictably severe Natalie Merchant, and an iconoclastic Vic Chestnut. (I know this because they made a compelling DVD of the event, which is included here). The material was exactly the same, if not played exactly the same, and all had a wonderful back-slapping time, with Merchant's haunting voice outgunning Margo Timmons's less expressive pipes. But that's splitting hairs - this is a celebration of a signal event. Still, how you wish they could raise a smile or three more often. www.cowboyjunkies.com JOE BREEN
Download tracks: Sweet Jane, To Love Is to Bury, Blue Moon Revisited
DWIGHT YOAKAM
Dwight Sings Buck
New West
***
"But didn't he always," I hear you cry. Sing Buck I mean. Yes, you're right, but this time Dwight Yoakam's making an album of it, having already made a career out of it. The late Buck Owens had a wonderful ability to create popular masterpieces from what seemed like banal sentiments. As with the era of the 1950s and 1960s, there was an innocence at play in songs such as Act Naturally, Cryin' Time and Love's Gonna Live Here, and also some killer melodies and cranked-up playing. Yoakam pays tribute to his hero by pulling together an equally feisty band, who stick pretty closely to Owens's script. Perhaps he is too much in awe of his inspiration or too self-conscious, but Yoakam rarely gets out of his slipstream. Of course, the music is good, but given each artist's pedigree and their history together, one would have expected this album to be great. www.dwightyoakam.com JOE BREEN
Download tracks: My Heart Skips a Beat, Act Naturally, Close Up the Honky-Tonks
