Let's cut to the chase: The Rankins, minus the word "family" in their name, have gone country.

One of Canada's premier Celtic bands, five siblings swimming in traditional music for more than a decade, is wearing a cowboy hat.

"Never be careful,'' the friendly Cookie Rankin states with the ease of someone announcing what time it is.

"The (new) album is called Uprooted and that's what it's about. On a personal level, an artistic level, things have been pulled apart over the last few years. People have died, a lot of people, and it's affected us.''

The loss of their mother, on top of the general malaise that Rankin admits plagued the band for a couple of years, forced the hand of the East Coast group, in town tomorrow night for a concert at the Jubilee Auditorium.

You can't simply call someone in to replace all five grieving players on the road. It hit them like a meteor.

And to be completely fair, as we always try to be here in Sun Music Central, it's not like they've forgotten their roots entirely. Few and far between are country records with song titles like O Tha Mo Dhuil Ruit or Farewell to Lachaber. But there is undeniably a lot of the new Nashville sound on this record, the disc largely recorded down south in country music central where the grass is brown all winter.

More than a little success in country circles, especially on video channels, made them say why not?

"People are peeved at us. People will still write to us today and complain that we're not doing what we did on our first album,'' Rankin says. "The purists'll complain what we're doing is wrong. But they're asking us not to grow! "You don't want to write like you did in Grade 12 or your first year of university."

Oh, I don't know. I got to swear a lot more then, I counter. Rankin laughs for a while at that and puts it another way: "You don't want to lose your youth, but you can't stay in the same place forever. Of course, a lot of people do. I can't. We won't.''

The decision to change to the Rankins from the Rankin Family is also mixed up in all of this.

"Why do you think we did it?'' she smiles playfully.

The Partridge Family comparison comes to mind and she confirms that's part of it. Another part of it is that the Rankins simply want to be a band.

"There's a lot of personality that goes into a record with five people. (The Rankins) is simpler, to the point. It's an identity thing. Does that make any sense?''

Making sense is irrelevant. What this is all about is music and music doesn't have to make sense.

But the bottom line is easy enough to trace. The country songs on Uprooted are as strong as almost anything in their peer group. There is energy, twang and the lyrics are about life. So what if the band's from the Maritimes?

It's not like half the accents down in Music City aren't faked, after all.

So what's next for the Rankins? A drum and bass album? Rap? There must be some master plan.

"Are you kidding?'' Rankin says. "I'm a musician. I'm lucky if I get up in the morning.''