TOUS DANS L'MEME BATEAU

Their first album is, in my opinion, their best. The album flows very well, and all the songs are great or very good. While Rachel Paiement does not sing as many of the songs here as she does on the second album, Andre Paiement does a great job with those songs he sings and in general the vocal qualities among the male singers are much better here than on any of their later albums. It seems to me that these songs were written over a long time, so the quality is generally much better, whereas on later albums there is a lot of filler that has not aged nearly as well. The last tune here ("Baie Ste-Marie") is similar in structure to the last song on their second album ("Spirit of the North"), and although the violin solo on the latter is very good, I prefer the more relaxed build-up on Baie. Among CANO's regular albums, this is the one I would recommend picking up first. I give it 8 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 4 PA stars.