Blue Rodeo – The Days In Between

Toronto’s Blue Rodeo was hailed as a promising young roots-conscious rock band early in its career, but more than a decade later, they’ve yet to make any major dent in the U.S. (though they were one of Canada’s biggest-selling bands of the 1990s). This is perhaps partially because of their clockwork-like modus operandi: Release a solid album every two years full of smart writing and accomplished playing, with guitarists Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor sharing the pen and the mike. Blue Rodeo is short on flash and long on substance when, more times than not, the reverse of that equation is what sells 100,000 records. Call it the curse of consistency.

True to form, The Days In Between isn’t flashy; however, this new one does stand out as Blue Rodeo’s most versatile effort to date. There are well-executed rave-ups (“Begging You To Let Me In” and the title track), a bouncy pop song with a killer chorus (“Somebody Waits”), and a lovely ballad called “Andrea” that’s built on organ-driven country-soul underpinnings. “Bitter Fruit”, with its strings and province-sized spaces between notes, recalls Alejandro Escovedo, and the 3 a.m. driving song “This Road” travels the same evocative highway. The gentle and dreamy “Truscott” caps the album and features a chorus that pivots on the line, “We will keep moving I know.” It’s the perfect mantra for a talented band that has seemed forever poised for stardom.