Micah P. Hinson 'All Dressed Up and Smelling Of Strangers' (Full Time Hobby) Released 21/09/09

Smarten up! 'All Dressed Up and Smelling Of Strangers' is Micah P Hinson's album of cover songs taking in the likes of Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, Elvis (the pelvis), Leadbelly, The Beatles - you-got-it!

To glean from the selection of tunes, we see how the guitar has allowed Hinson to find a path, a crook to keep him from straying so long as he can deliver his songs, singing "...I love to sing these songs for you..." on John Denver's 'This Old Guitar', and closing with 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'. Two minute wonders abound among homages to the great and forgotten on a work spread over two volumes. Volume one is largely folksy, country ballads with some lesser known songs by Americana artists meriting attention. 'Not Forever Now' by Centro-Matic features resonant piano and a melancholy strum that's all creaky and groany, dusty and glorious, while 'Slow and Steady' by Pedro The Lion is a sepia-tinted song to years gone-by at Grandma's house with tea and cake, rattlesnakes and poisin oak lining the song, and 'We Almost Had A Baby' by Emmy The Great is a striking sweet ditty that Hinson lends his gruff persona to. However! - Cohen's 'Suzanne', Sinatra's 'My Way', Elvis's 'Are You Lonesome Tonight?' and Dylan's 'Times They Are A Changin' add nothing new to what we've heard before, serving as mid-course way-markers.

Volume two has more spunk. Hinson's cover of Roy Orbison's 'Runnin' Scared' is positively inspired and the great man would buy him a frothy schooner - a tight, rich 2.16 minutes of rhythm, cadence and lush arrangement. Patsy Cline's 'Stop The World' gets a caustic make-over with fuzz guitar and a strut that Hinson sets alight, while Leadbelly's 'In The Pines' is all dirt-under-the-fingernails - a gritty, grungey work à la Nirvana, and Buddy Holly's 'Listen To Me' gets wonderfully strangled by reverb and a yelping Hinson with a sense of pathos and desperation in the plea. Closing with the evergreen 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', Hinson adds scudsy textures to the xylophone, guitar and doped drums like a Jackson Pollock having away a Cezanne - Hinson's voice gets modulated like a kazoo and reverb limits are tastefully strung out.

Timing is key, and it'd be arrogant or foolish to release a covers album until you've earned your doffed caps. With Hinson's gruff-toned croons and lived in charms, 'All Dressed Up and Smelling Of Strangers' is a coming of age album where we can see behind the curtains of Hinson's inspirations and personally affecting songs. Fortunately for us, there's many a challenger to his choice cover of Jeff Buckley's 'Yard Of Blonde Girls'.