In the Falling Dark by Bruce Cockburn

In the Falling Dark, Bruce Cockburn's seventh studio album, came out on True North in 1976, and it's the record where the Canadian songwriter finally let the room fill up. Gone are the spare acoustic settings of his earlier work; in their place is a full band, folk shading into jazz, the songs given space to swell and breathe.

It arrived just a year after Joy Will Find a Way, and it was his first release in the United States since 1972, which makes the leap in ambition all the more striking. The payoff was real if modest: a Canadian Gold Record Award at home, and his first chart placing south of the border, a lowly No. 191 in Cash Box. Critics looking back rate it as a turning point, the moment Cockburn stopped hinting at a bigger sound and actually made one, and "Silver Wheels" is the track that kept rolling.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.