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, which played the Coca-Cola Stage last night at the Stampede.

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

To be completely fair, 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.

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."

The country songs on Uprooted are as strong as almost anything in their new country music 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."