It is 1989 and I’m driving home from a friend’s 21st birthday party out in the Yarra Valley. I am a young man who feels a little out of place at the party so decide not to take up the offer to stay over and camp the night on his parent’s farm (still not a fan of camping!). As I drive home to my inner city house (that hasn’t changed either) I turn up very loud the Cowboy Junkies album Trinity Sessions (which was one of my favourite albums of that time). The beauty of the landscape I am driving through is matched by the beauty of Margo Timmins voice and the familiar songs makes me feel as if I am floating home.

Thirty years later I still love listening to that album, the Cowboy Junkies have of course released many more fine albums over the decades, this is their 16th album…and now the day after I turn fifty I am listening to their new album All That Reckoning. Not much has changed, yet everything is different. A band who have at times had great success, and just as many times out of the spotlight, a flame kept alive by their devoted followers. This new album will hopefully see more of the former, an album in tune with the political times ( a reckoning) as well as the personal. Margo and her brothers Michael & Peter with childhood friend Alan Anton have recorded their first album of new material in six years. Michael’s lyrics and guitars are much tougher here, matching the times we live in. More darkness than light, but sometimes beauty lurks in the shadows.

Dave Clarke is the music and DVD manager at Readings.