XRAY SIERRA
Tom Cochrane

On his last studio album, the often melancholy Ragged Ass Road, life seemed less like a highway and more like a dead-end. Marital problems will do that. But the veteran Canadian singer-songwriter is in better spirits now, so Xray Sierra replaces gut-wrenching introspection with a genuine joie de vivre. "One more good day to survive," he sings on the glad-to-be-alive Beautiful Day. Elsewhere, he sings about the inner strength that comes with overcoming hardship (Stonecutter's Arms) and having a soulmate (Piece of Your Soul). There's a playfulness to the songs, too, in the way he uses Leonard Cohen's So Long Marianne as the source material for Marianne and Lenny, or in the hint of ska in the scurrying rhythm of I Wonder, or in the swampy guitar tones of Willie Dixon Said. Cochrane concludes the album with a tragic tale of a boy's senseless murder -- a haunting, sobering way to end an album that preaches about the value of life.