The Cowboy Junkies' gothic Americana takes a psychedelic hue onAt the End of Paths Taken, replete with Beatlesque string sections and snarling, distorted guitar leads.  It's an often epic album, exemplified by the opening track, "Brand New World," which starts off like a lament and ends with a triumph of surging strings.   Atop it all sits singer Margo Timmins. She's the lover everyone wants, a voice that is at once world-weary and inviting, domineering and seductive.  She's the perfect vehicle for writer and brother Michael Timmins--especially on an album that deals with adult themes--because if nothing else, Margo sounds like an adult, a woman who has experienced the world and life and things that maybe we shouldn't talk about.  A mother's frustration never sounded as ominous and threatening as on "Cutting Board Blues."  Sitting astride a buzzsaw guitar riff and a groove of doom, she talks about walking away from it all, leaving her cutting board behind.   Many of the themes concern adulthood and children with a sense of despair about the world those children are entering on songs like "My Little Basquiat."  There are moments of light and hope onAt the End of Paths Taken, but overall it is a deliriously dark and brooding album.--John Diliberto