There is a vogue for bands to revisit and perform classic albums in their entirety, but few have gone so far as to re-record them. If you decide to do just that you are, of course, inviting comparison with the original – so the end result had better be good.
The Cowboy Junkies may not have bettered the original version of their Trinity LP. Then again, that was not their intention. They have, however, made an album that updates the original with style, grace and invention. The record opens with the spine-tingling a cappella voice of Margo Timmins on ‘Mining For Gold’. The Junkies’ own ‘Misguided Angel’ follows. Here, Natalie Merchant duets with Timmins to wonderful effect – the distinctive voices blending together remarkably well. Timmins may have sung these songs countless times since the original record was released but she adds a certain depth and wisdom to her vocals. Likewise in ‘Blue Moon Revisited’ Vic Chesnutt adds his world-weary voice to the song and perfectly underlines its inherent sadness. Indeed the blend of voices throughout give additional resonance and an earthy humanity to the largely understated instruments.
Merchant singing ‘To Love Is To Bury’ is reason enough to buy this album which, throughout, is a joy. Seeing a restrained and respectful, but still very much engaged Ryan Adams is not a role you usually associate with him, but here he is an asset to the overall ambience, and his lead vocal on ‘200 More Miles’ is well up to par. Vic Chesnutt’s distinctive singing brings a new dimension to Allen Reynolds’ ‘Dreaming My Dreams With You’, making a good contrast to Margo Timmins’ own haunting vocal.
For the most part the music follows the simple and quietly focused underplayed pattern of the original, but occasionally, as in the discordant elements of ‘Working On A Building’, it rises above that to show the power that's being held in check.
I'd expected to like this album, as I'd loved The Trinity Sessions, but Trinity Revisited manages to not make you forget the original but to see it from a new perspective that makes this project both rewarding and relevant in its own right.