I totally agree with you MD that Rick Cornell's review, which I transcribed and posted below, is rife with contradictions. It's almost as if somebody told him to write something like, " well boys time is running out for guys like you who have had a band for 20 plus years, but hey y'all still sound fine, so keep on doing whatever you're doing for as long as you dig it." Certainly not a ringing endorsement of "Small Miracles", which I think is one of Blue Rodeo's best albums in a long while. I think Mr. Cornell's review is very rote, like he really had to push himself to even listen to the album all the way through at least once, and his matter of fact seeming toss off of Blue Rodeo's songs is very disappointing and puzzling, particularly when I read it in a magazine that I've respected for getting the word out on alt.country and indie rock music that is worth listening to for many years.
Ironically the TeleSoul advertisement for "Small Miracles" in No Depression's September-October 2007 issue contained words to the effect that 'no band is more honest than Blue Rodeo'. Would that Mr. Cornell was so honest! I still can''t figure out from reading his wishy-washy review whether he likes SM or hates SM. If cornell didn't like the album, why didn't he just come out and say so? Why, because I think that No Depression is in the business of selling music product. Blue Rodeo was a part of the early 1990's alt.country movement, and so they get reviewed in No Depression or else they are filed away as "band to watch". I've lost alot of my previous respect for the magazine because they used to write record reviews that were honest and either the record was praised as being good and reasons for why it was good were given, OR if ND reviewers heard a klunker, they told us so. Anyway here is the No Depression review of "Small Miracles" posted for your consideration:
BLUE RODEO
Small Miracles
(TeleSoul)
Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy, the Lennon & McCartney of Canadian roots-rock, have been writing and performing together for 25 years. While there’s nothing to indicate that Small Miracles represents the end of the road, it does feel like it was written from a vantage point where the end is visible. References to mortality and finality sprout in song after song, and most everything feels bathed in twilight.
"I don’t have all the time in the world," they sing on the album-opening "So Far Away" and the title track, tellingly, is set late in the evening. Keelor, whose songs tend to be edgier and more sprawling than Cuddy’s, laments a bruised-beyond-repair relationship that has reached the goodbye point in "It Makes Me Wonder". "C’mon", which captures the sextet at their catchy-rock best, tells of days that are gone forever. Even Cuddy’s brightly lit pop songs, "Summer Girls" and the crescendo marvel "This Town", have the sting of leaving lurking. And "3 Hours Away", a gentle country rocker that’s reprised as the more atmospheric "Where I Was Before" to close the album, nails the overall mood: "Some things aren’t meant to last/Like a day that burns up fast/Turn away and then it’s gone."
Blue Rodeo’s trademark sound, a multi-national combination of Beatles, Band and Byrds with the occasional honky-tonk detour, is in excellent form. Even if the end of the road appears to be on the minds of Keelor and Cuddy, their music still sounds like it could go on forever. - RICK CORNELL, No Depression, #73, page 70, (January-February, 2008)