The Dustin Bentall Outfit — Six Shooter

When your father is Barney Bentall, your album's called Six Shooter and there's a gunfight about to break out on its cover, your music better be heavy on Wild West themes.

Dustin Bentall and his band definitely deliver in that respect. Opener "Railroad" is rife with harmonica and lap steel, and the word "boxcar" is tossed out before Six Shooter is a minute old. On "Take The Money," Bentall says he has always wanted to be a cowboy, and in that spirit, the remainder of the album deals with your typical cowboy occurrences: riding the rails, fending off women, robbing banks and getting thrown in the slammer.

On the whole, Six Shooter is reminiscent of the work of both Ox and Luke Doucet (Doucet is actually on the album, playing guest guitar for five tracks). Everyman lyrics don't always come across honestly, especially when they're contained in the story of what's likely a fictional lifestyle, but Bentall pulls off down-on-his-luck westerner quite convincingly.

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