Pale Sun, Crescent Moon  (Audio CD) 
by Cowboy Junkies

The Cowboy Junkies' Michael Timmins is a most literary songwriter. On the Toronto quartet's Pale Sun Crescent Moon, Timmins imbeds lines from William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom into the song "First Recollection" and a line from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "The General in His Labyrinth" in the song "Seven Years" without it seeming the least bit awkward. He has found the perfect literary voice for his writing in his sister Margo Timmins, whose alto is all smoke and suggestion. Songs are not poems, however, and never was that distinction more obvious than it is here. The album's so-called songs float in atmospheric harmonies, unshaped by melody or meter. This droning music may seem haunting on first encounter, but by the third song the melodic monotony encourages dozing. --Geoffrey Himes