Bruce Cockburn: You've Never Seen Everything

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * *)

Now twentysomething albums into a long career, Canadian folk-poet Cockburn can still pull surprises. His brooding baritone, exceptional guitar work, and the assimilation of rock and world music into his thoughtful and politically provocative lyrics are regular hallmarks. And because of his consistency they are probably taken for granted.

But this time he distils them into something special by finding a hitherto unexplored groove-oriented style which at times reminds of mid-period Joni Mitchell, where the song is propelled by rippling and rhythmic bass and embellished by jazz piano.

Check Trickle Down, initially a kissing cousin of that spoken-rap lineage from Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues (albeit with an Afrobeat underpinning), which takes off into jazzy guitar and piano flight, all the while pouring scorn on globalisation while never being as didactic as some on his recent albums.

In other places he turns everything down for a delicate, harmonica-tinged meditation on the mystery of life (Everywhere Dance), nods to Byrdsian melodies on the big-chested Put It in Your Heart (life from a more jaundiced perspective), addresses the horror of man's inhumanity in the speak-sing imagistic Postcards from Cambodia, and pulls out some Moroccan-influenced blues-folk on Wait No More.

Cockburn has often seemed too self-satisfied for his own good. This time however - with guests Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Sam Phillips and Sarah Harmer on harmony vocals - his heart and head are in harmony.

With some deeply rocking grooves at the bottom and a broad palette of styles from the introverted and poetic (death and religion on Celestial Horses) to the elevating reminder on Don't Forget About Delight, this is Cockburn on a late-career high.

Label: Shock