ALBUM REVIEW

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COWBOY JUNKIES “The Caution Horses” RCA

In following up on the pop-rock classic that the band delivered in 1988 with “The Trinity Session,” the Junkies needed to open the musical blinds a bit to shed more emotional light on their subject, rather than remain tucked away in the melancholy darkness of that last work.

On “The Caution Horses” the band responds with some exquisite moments, including encouraging signs of songwriting growth. Where Michael Timmins and/or sister Margo wrote only five of the 12 songs on “Trinity,” they wrote all but one of the 10 selections this time. The exception: Neil Young’s “Powderfinger.”

“Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning,” one of the two most compelling new numbers, is a richly detailed, introspective examination of a woman trying to recover her balance after severing a relationship ripped apart by betrayal.

“ ‘Cause Cheap Is How I Feel” again captures eloquently a quiet, bittersweet mood--this one tied to asking for forgiveness after some sort of personal failure. Sample lyrics:

And I’m searching all the windows for a last - minute present

To prove to you that what I said was real

For something small and frail and plastic, baby

‘Cause cheap is how I feel.

Margo Timmins sings both songs in a soft, understated style that matches perfectly the gentle mist of country instrumentation offered by the band.

While some other songs and some arrangements expand the group’s world a bit musically, the Junkies, in the end, haven’t opened the blinds far enough--leaving the album once more with primarily a single emotional color--and it happens to be the same gray featured in the last one. The traces of greater musical color make “Caution” seem more like a transitional album than the next definitive one from one of rock’s most absorbing groups.