One of Canada’s most prolific and best loved bands, Blue Rodeo is back at it, refreshing and reinvigorating their unique style of alternative country with their 13th album, In Our Nature, due out Tuesday, Oct. 29. Encapsulating the Zoomer spirit, Blue Rodeo will celebrate their eagerly awaited new release when they perform on VisionTV’s flagship current events show, theZoomer, hosted by Conrad Black and Denise Donlon, on Monday, November 4th at 9pm ET on VisionTV. In anticipation of their visit, VisionTV and theZoomer are proud to present the opportunity to listen to In Our Nature in its entirety prior to the album’s release.

LISTEN: Scroll down to preview the full album of In Our Nature. Pre-order the new album via iTunes or Blue Rodeo’s website.

Our taping of this edition of theZoomer will take place on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 31 at The ZoomerPlex. Email [email protected] or RSVP at www.thezoomertv.com to be a part of our audience, but hurry because there are only limited seats available.

Being a Zoomer is about reinvention, finding an innate creativity and verve that extends well beyond youth and initial expectations. After celebrating their 25th anniversary last year and now, launching into a new era of music-making, Blue Rodeo exemplifies that reinvention. In addition to their 13 acclaimed albums, the band’s members have numerous solo/side projects and collaborations with heralded Canadian and international stars. They have a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, and were recently inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Such acclaim, though, did little to stop the band from challenging and approaching their process in a new way while recording In Our Nature.

For this album, the group left their urban Toronto studio for the farm of band mate Greg Keelor, with new engineer James McKenty, keyboardist Michael Boguski and guitarist Colin Cripps all in tow. As Jim Cuddy explains, “Originally, we thought we’d come out here and do what we did on 5 Days in July – empty out the furniture from the living room and play in the round – but it turned out that the music had a bigger scope than that. So we positioned ourselves around the various rooms and started working.”

It was an interesting trick of partial isolation, allowing these seasoned musicians who know one another so well to explore their craft in a way that kept them both apart as individual artists yet, through the sonorous surroundings, interwoven as a tight ensemble. You might say that this album is a product of being intentionally ‘lost together’. Additionally, the band toured over the past year with many of the album’s forthcoming songs prior to laying down the final recording tracks, offering extensive opportunities to adapt, shape and hone these new musical offerings.

Blue Rodeo will of course be hitting the road in support of In Our Nature. They’ll kick off a cross-Canada tour on Jan 2. at Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre. Get the full list of dates and ticket info here.

Certain things that concern all Zoomers like health, vitality and career are things that Blue Rodeo’s founding members sometimes ponder as well. Although he’s certainly just fine, Cuddy previously expressed in a 2009 Toronto Star interview that his fifties have been “a real reckoning, an acceptance of alterations in the body that are difficult to take. The thought of turning 60 scares me more than anything else ever has before,” he appreciates the unique value of his and his band mates’ specialty. “I always looked ahead to Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. I’ve always appreciated that I’m in a profession that won’t put you out to pasture just because you’re getting old.”

The challenge of Zoomer life is much the same, rock star or not. Blue Rodeo’s perseverance as artists is testament that the struggle, properly tuned and mixed, is well worth it. If this album and the continuing, successful trajectory of Blue Rodeo is any indication, they have little to worry about.

– Jefferson Wright/Henry Lees