Arizona born but now based in Texas, this is Dave Insley's third album and he sounds like he knows what he's about. And what he's about is honky tonk music that delivers songs about the familiar themes of blue collar lives: hearth and home and your one true love are what makes a man happy, but the temptation of the bottle is always there, and there's plenty of times when incomings can't match outgoings and 'Everything's Broken Again'. Sometimes tragedy overtakes everyone; 'Exit 93' is written from beyond the grave by a trucker who swerved to avoid a school bus and was killed in the ensuing crash:
'Now I'm up in heaven, driving big rigs for the lord
I'm haulin' harps and angel wings and bibles by the score'.
That's a pretty characteristic lyric for the album as a whole. Sentimentality looms large and nothing ever quite resonates as having been written from personal experience. Still, if that doesn't bug you, then there's plenty to enjoy here. Dave Insley's rich voice is warm and friendly and he's got a pretty good band behind him. There's plenty of old-fashioned swooping pedal steel from Bobby Snell and a guitar rich sound from Dave Insley himself and his producer Dale Allen that's sometimes Johnny Cash-ish ('Exit 93'), sometimes quite rock/pop ('Beatin Ya' Down') and otherwise frequently pretty much like classic Bakersfield to my ears. Occasionally, Texas Swing style , there'll be a succession of breaks as each band member gets their few bars in the spotlight and overall you get the feeling that, first and foremost, Dave Insley and The Careless Smokers are about a good night out.
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(John Davy www.nessmp3.com/music/bisciutsandgravy)
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