Just Married - An Album of Duets

Album Review

Canadian alt-country singer/songwriter Carolyn Mark has spent most of her career in the commercial shadow of her erstwhile singing partner Neko Case, but the cognoscenti have long recognized that Mark is her own artist. Much more of a pure country singer at heart than Case, Mark's Just Married: An Album of Duets shows her roots with good old-fashioned honky tonk ballads like "North Country Fair" (recorded with the Silver Hearts) and a heartfelt acoustic take on the Hank Williams standard "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" with Luke Doucet, as well as the Western Swing-inspired swagger of "Sweet Thing" with Corb Lund and the more contemporary Nashville sound of "It's All Just a Matter (Of Where You Draw the Line)" with Geoff Berner. But Mark isn't a hidebound traditionalist: other highlights here include the winsome folk-rock of "The Happy Bluebird Sings" with the Fine Options, and "Go Figure" with Kristen Harrison, the melodramatic indie rock atmospherics of "Claxton's Lament" with Carey Mercer, and the playful rock & roll mashup "Rocket Piano Man," a duet with Amy Honey which giddily conflates Billy Joel, Elton John, David Bowie's "Space Oddity," and other FM mainstays into a tongue in cheek celebration of outer space kitsch. Even more varied and wide-ranging than Mark's solo records, Just Married: An Album of Duets is one of her stronger efforts.