If I had heard this album earlier than just recently, Great Blue North would have been on my list of best albums of the year. The band's label does not send me copies of its releases, and ordinarily, as a matter of something like principle, I do not review CDs I have to pay for. Not long ago, though, this one came to mind in a stray thought, and I decided to pick it up because it seemed an almost certainly wise investment.

It was. The Chicago-based Special Consensus (for much of its history "Bluegrass Band" was attached to its name) is among the finest bluegrass outfits, arguably at the top of the heap of the non-Southern ones. Founded in 1975 by banjoist Greg Cahill -- who still leads the band, which of course has had its share of personnel changes over its nearly 50 years' existence -- it boasts a modern sound, but one so immersed in the genre's traditions that it appeals to just anybody on any side of the old/new debate. In that way, it is something of a 21st-century equivalent to the classic Country Gentlemen, founded in the late 1950s as the first urban bluegrass group. Not that the bands sound the same, but the overlap is inescapable to any informed listener.

The Country Gentlemen and Special Consensus didn't win their audiences by watering down Bill Monroe's music. They just found out how to do it their way with their considerable vocal, harmony and picking talents, not to mention their melodic approach. What they also did, though, was reimagine a new vision of the bluegrass songbook, stepping outside the stereotypes of Mother, the old mountain home, broken hearts and Jesus to find material as often as not from outside the genre, frequently in folk music, modern and traditional.

On Great Blue North Cahill and his three associates got the bright idea to do a bluegrass tribute to Canadian folk-based singer-songwriters. I know enough about the Canadian scene to know there are some exceptional artists in it, only a paltry handful of whom are familiar figures south of the border. The most famous, the late Gordon Lightfoot, occupies two of the 10 cuts here. There have been other covers of "Alberta Bound," but none to match this one, currently at the head of the bluegrass charts. (Yes, there are bluegrass charts.) There is also the more obscure "Brave Mountaineers," a smart take on a theme that usually devolves into tedious cliches.

Though I am not particularly a fan of Bruce Cockburn, I would be if he wrote more songs like "Mighty Trucks of Midnight," a striking number that is both nourish and socially conscious. Band member Greg Blake provides a vision of neo-roots heaven in another trucker's ballad, David Francey's "Highway 95," which combines Francey's composing brilliance (repeatedly demonstrated, by the way, and worth seeking out) with Blake's otherworldly vocal. Combine a great singer with a magnificent song, and this is what you get. In summary: wow.

There is, moreover, a gorgeous oldtime fiddle tune with the enchanting title "Pretty Kate and the Rabbit." Trisha Gagnon's "The Jaybird Song" may as well be a venerable Canadian folk song.

Well, you can hear the rest yourself. Be prepared for joy.