Here's a great review from the Ottawa Citizen:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/arts/story.html?id=2155459c-4e5e-4f89-bb05-4999d523d304
Lynn Saxberg, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, September 25, 2007Small Miracles Rating 4
Blue Rodeo (Warner Music Canada)
My first inkling of a renewed vitality among the members of Blue Rodeo came this past summer when I popped onto the band's tour bus to say hi before they performed at Bluesfest.
In this air-conditioned cocoon, cut off from the rest of the festival, I watched the core songwriting duo of Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor warm up for their big show as if they were jamming around a campfire. There was some impressive picking coming from their acoustic guitars, but I didn't recognize a thing.
Although it was a neat moment, it struck me as a funny way to hold a last-minute rehearsal -- why bother running through a bunch of stuff if you're not planning to play it on stage? However, now that I hear the band's amazing new record, I think I understand. It must have had something to do with the excitement of hitting a new vein of creativity.
For anyone who was expecting the same old midtempo country rock from a band that's been around for more than two decades, Small Miracles, Blue Rodeo's 11th studio outing, is a delightful surprise. While there are no shocking departures from the band's basic style (yup, still midtempo country rock), what sets this record apart is the terrific songwriting and inspired ensemble playing, with some built-in room for improvisation.
Recorded at the band's Woodshed studio in Toronto, Small Miracles captures the magic that happens between musicians who have been playing together for years. In Blue Rodeo's case, the fire is stoked a little higher by the presence of keyboardist Bob Packwood, the most recent addition to the band. His inventive piano and organ work gives the music a new dimension. There's also a string section adding a touch of colour to a handful of songs.
Keeping in mind that Cuddy and Keelor released excellent solo albums last year, it's pretty impressive that each one has come up with some more great songs for Small Miracles. It's easily their best album since the landmark Five Days in July, released in 1993.
From Cuddy, who just keeps getting better at cranking out songs that have melodic and emotional hooks, we hear the breezy Summer Girls, the tear-jerker 3 Hours Away, the melodic Mystic River and the upbeat first single, C'mon, which has a perky thump that disguises the love-gone-sour edge of the lyrics. My favourite of Cuddy's batch is the piano-laden This Town, the second single, a bittersweet ode to misplaced expectations and lost dreams that ultimately finds the will to keep trying. When Cuddy sings, "You don't have to love this town," in that silky tenor of his, resignation never sounded so sweet.
Keelor, who has always provided the dark, adventurous counterpart to Cuddy's tuneful country-pop songs, weighs in with some of the best songs of his career.
That includes the jangly psychedelia of So Far Away, the harrowing It Makes Me Wonder and the stark and haunting Beautiful. To my ears, the high point of the record is Keelor's Black Ribbon, a majestic anthem that strays into Come Together-like disarray before landing squarely back on the groove.
It's also Keelor who provides valuable insight into the state of the band itself in his song Together.
Although apparently a love song, there's another layer of meaning in the first verse that could be applied to the creative relationship within the band: "We can fight and argue all night/And I'll sing my blues/And you'll sing yours too/Cause no one's giving in/No one's even listening."
From what I've heard about Blue Rodeo, having six strong-willed musicians can make for a creative clash of epic proportions. This song seems to indicate they're learning how to work out their differences.
The boys will clamber back on the tour bus in January for a Canadian tour that's expected to start in Vancouver, cross the country to St. John's, N.L., and conclude in Toronto near the end of February.
Ottawa is tentatively scheduled for Feb. 14. (And Saturday, the Jim Cuddy Band plays Perth and District Collegiate, as part of the Perth Performing Arts series.)