Reckless Kelly – Somewhere in Time – (Yep Roc)

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It’s easy for a band to break new creative ground with its own songs, but it’s harder to do when playing an album’s worth of cover tunes.

Texas roots-rockers Reckless Kelly manage to pay an admirable musical tribute to the songs of Idaho cult favorite Pinto Bennett and his Famous Motel Cowboys, while infusing them with fresh touches of Texas twang and Western swing. Willy Braun’s vocals resemble a smokier Toby Keith, and are especially evocative on the fiddle-laced Bakersfield shuffle of “I Hold the Bottle, You Hold the Wheel” and the dramatic “Pure Quill.” Although the songs lent themselves to the Reckless Kelly crossover sound pretty well, tunes like “Thelma” and “I’ve Done Everything I Could Do Wrong” rank as some of the most country-sounding songs the band has ever recorded.

Pinto Bennett himself joins in on “Thelma,” backed only by an acoustic guitar and makes this record less of a tribute and more of a celebration of a man whose talents have been sorely overlooked.