Blue Rodeo - Five Days in July

Blue Rodeo's best album -- and the first of a trilogy of brilliant records that would feature the band at its most epic, brave, and experimental (also featuring Nowhere To Here and Tremolo) -- Five Days In July began with Daniel Lanois' advice to the bandmembers that they not be confined by a recording studio, so they dragged their equipment out to Greg Keelor's farmland home and made what is essentially the ultimate "campfire" album. With the exception of the dynamite harmonic cover of Rodney Crowell's "Till I Gain Control Again," the songs have a loose, stoney feel about them -- both Keelor's and Jim Cuddy's works feel like they just kind of organically evolved, which actually makes a whole lot of sense given the circumstances under which they were written and recorded. Read More