Micah P Hinson 'All Dressed Up and Smelling of Strangers'

A covers album!

There are two ways of doing a covers album. One is to choose some relatively obscure songs and do some respectful and reverential versions, upsetting nobody and probably introducing your fans to some new artists. The second way is to laugh in the face of this notion and just choose your favourite songs and record them exactly as you choose. Micah P Hinson has chosen the second option.

As a result, the Texan troubadour presents a two volume collection of covers, divided loosely but not completely into a set of intimate acoustic recordings and louder full-band efforts. Hinson aims high and tackles well loved songs by the likes of Dylan, Cohen, Denver, The Beatles, Buddy Holly and, er, Emmy The Great.

Inevitably, with a project like this, the songs are executed with varying degrees of success. One constant though is Hinson's deep Texan drawl, a quite wonderful instrument which conveys real emotion; smooth and soothing one moment, harsh and broken the next, it has served him well with his own songs and in many ways works even better here...

..Take 'The Times They Are A Changing', no point in doing a cover of this you might think, especially not in exactly the same acoustic tradition as the original, but it is a joy because Hinson sings it so well, emphasising some of the words differently and stretching some of the syllables out, it is engaging and rich...and wisely he doesn't ruin it with a harmonica solo. Similarly, he does a great job with Emmy The Great's 'We Almost Had A Baby', switching it to the male perspective and having fun with lines like "I am a man...but before I met you, fuck, I was only a kid" and he does a straight, perfectly sung version of Leonard Cohen's 'Suzanne'.

If Volume 1 is filled with moody, lo-fi americana versions of standards, Volume 2 is far more adventurous and playful. For example, Hinson yells out Buddy Holly's 'Listen To Me' over a wall of guitar noise and Leadbelly's 'In The Pines' may lack the naked emotion of Kurt Cobain's version but is just as edgy and desperate.

'All Dressed Up and Smelling of Strangers' is a triumph for Micah P Hinson. As covers albums go, it is daring and experimental, but most of all it showcases what an amazing singer Hinson is. He takes on some of the all time greats here, and never sounds out of his depth.

8.1

['All Dressed Up and Smelling of Strangers' is out now on Full Time Hobby]