Cowboy Junkies: “Such Ferocious Beauty” (Review & Stream)

The memory fades, dissolves, drifts away. To where? To the afterlife? It’s a harrowing song dedicated by Canadian siblings Margo, Michael and Peter Timmins to their father who died of dementia. What I Lost follows on from the grieving of Ghosts (2020), which loomed over the death of mother Barbara Timmins. In the other tracks on their new album, the Cowboy Junkies deal with the loss of loved ones and find comforting, even uplifting tones for the bereaved.

There is no beauty without the pain of impermanence

The country and folk-rock meditations don’t always reach the mastery of this band’s early records. And yet: “Flood” develops an improbable pull. “Watching the the water rise/ Should I follow it down/ To where the river meets the sea/ Or let it devour me?” Margo Timmins sings in a voice that still has that greatest sorrow transformed into grace. But nothing brings you as close to tears as the search for the Blue Skies. The cowboy junkies leave us with the certainty: there is no beauty without the pain of transience.

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