Tangle of Souls

Tangle of Souls is the seventh full-length album by American-born, Edmonton, Alberta-based, globe-trotting troubadour Scott Cook. By full-length, we’re talking a dozen tracks on CD (or vinyl) accompanied by a 240-page, cloth-bound, hardcover book filled with notes on the music including lyrics and chords, lovely artwork by Australian Cecilia Sharpley, splendid photographs, poetry, stories and ruminations gleaned from Cook’s travels. The music is straightforward Americana roots seasoned with hearty helpings of folk, bluegrass and country.

In simple, descriptive turns of phrase, Cook sings about social ills and personal travails with perspicacious precision. ‘The whispers of your conscience/That get drowned out when you’re bingeing/Come back around to haunt you/Whenever you turn off the engine,’ Cook croons in ‘Tulsa’, alluding to his own struggles with self-medication. In ‘Say Can You See’ demagoguery and oppressive corporatism are set in contrast to the ties that bind citizens in a common cause: ‘See, I got a neighbour, we don’t always agree/He’s a bit of a redneck, according to a hippy like me/But if you’re in the ditch, he’ll pull you out, I know he will/And that’s more than I can say for all those dickheads on the hill’. In the tradition of Woody Guthrie, Hazel Dickens and many others, Cook is carrying on the good fight.