"THE moon is set, the sun comes up," murmurs Margo Timmins... and another album arrives in the unchanging world of Toronto's sepia-tinted country rock dignitaries.

This is their ninth studio set, and 16 languid winters have passed since the sepulchral, minimalist Trinity Sessions set out the map for woozy alt.country to follow.

Hear the coiling, narcotic haze of the debut album from Swedish eight piece The Concretes later this month, and the Cowboy Junkies' introspective imprimatur is all over it. Both bands owe much to the ubiquitous Velvet Underground, and in particular its smouldering Nico branch line.

Margo Timmins and her producer brother Michael never stray far from their melodically melancholic, questing pathway that leads to the trademark Notes Falling Slow, but do change gear from Sunday meandering on Why This One, My Wild Child and Stars Of Our Stars, a wind-in-the-hair thrill so breezy by their funereal standards that it could trigger the Cowboy Junkies speed cameras.

Updated: 08:41 Thursday, June 03, 2004