Corb Lund’s seventh studio album Cabin Fever: ‘It’s better than these fake ID’s I keep on buying’.

‘It’s even better than a novel stuffed with cash.’ It tells the story of a life as a city cowboy punk with true ranch background, hoping to find freedom in the fields, ending up lonely in a cabin with too many unfulfilled dreams wrapped in a country meets city meets punk missing-what-is-not-there kind of music.

‘You ain’t a cowboy if you ain’t been bucked off.’ Most songs of this 12-track record will leave you with an aftertaste of sadness, lonesome, lack – like the last ounce of a Texas mickey of Canadian Rye. Let’s face it: ‘Everything is better with some cows around.’ And than again: it isn’t. ‘That big old hole keeps getting bigger.’

Corb Lund’s somber songwriting balanced with the Hurtin’ Albertans’ hootenanny twang makes you dream your own unfulfilled dream. It makes you wish you weren’t living in a city. It makes you wish you were able to ride a horse, a tractor and a motor bike all at once. It makes you want to understand that lonesome cowboy life: feverish in a cabin, somewhere far away, deep in the praries, dusty sand blows in your face, you are able to rope cattle, milk a cow, hope for the best, find salvation in the land.

September, track number four on Cabin Fever, made me shiver right away. Maybe because of Corb Lund’s stoic voice singing this sad missing-summer-missing-mountains ballad with those melodic huh-huh-huh’s in between creating a sound as if somebody was crying – crying for a solution. It is the story of an old man and a young woman, who are spending summer in the mountains: ‘Stay rhythmic through September. The nights are getting cold.’ He has no desire to return to the urban environment for the upcoming winter. He lacks excuses why he would need to stay. He knows the city would offer more for a young woman during this time of the year. ‘But I guess I gotta let you go.’ The whining guitar rounds it up perfectly. You might stay sad for a while after listening to that song.

 Bible On The Dash is a humorous tale with a similar moral. Corb Lund and Hayes Carll as a duet talk more than sing to tell of how the road could treat you travelin’. Instead of finding the freedom open land should offer, they find themselves surrounded by the same old problems. Only the bible on the dash keeps them away from serious trouble with authority. The sarcastic sadness of this song will put a smile on your face but will keep you thinking. Just something a Cabin Fever will do in general.

Corb Lund’s seventh studio album Cabin Fever is released today. Look for it in all fine record shops.