Mellow Byrds from Canadian cowboys

Despite a live album and film soundtrack in the interim, New Seasons is the Toronto quartet's true follow-up to 2004's Favourite Colours. And in conjuring up the idyllic harmonies and jingling country-rock of late-'60s / early '70s California, it's another shift away from the mariachi and surf music that best defined their earlier work. Indeed, this sounds like the record The Byrds should have made instead of Ballad of Easy Rider. But the lissom guitars of brothers Dallas and Travis Good still allow for thrilling detours, from hot-rod romps to modern takes on Marty Robbins' sagebrush ballads.