Traditional country is alive and well and can be found in the debut album of Alabaman Wesley Dennis. In this age of faux country singers, Dennis is the real thing as he attests when he wails "This Hat Ain't Got No Act."
   Every song on this album evokes comparisons to the icons of country music, yet Wesley Dennis manages to sound like...Wesley Dennis.
   What Dennis does attain is a menagerie of honky-tonkin', whiskey drinkin', good ol' boy, love-gone-bad, cheatin' songs that could all be included one day on a Greatest Country Hits album. "Bubbaland" entones the tongue-in-cheek humor of country values while "That Look Was Worth A Thousand Words" is a sobering realization of a line that's been crossed in a relationship. "Lover's Junk Pile," "Whiskey Behavior," "Who's Counting," "It Ain't Fair," "I Don't Know (But I've Been told)" and "Leave Me A Picture Of You" all lament a love lost.
   "Borrowed Angel" and "Don't Make Me Feel At Home" exemplify the colliding emotions of desire and conscience that are the trademarks of a great cheatin' song. The Wesley Dennis penned "In The Middle Of A Little Love" brings the album full circle to touch base with a dyed-in-the-wool country love song.
   With artists such as Dennis emerging on the country scene, Hank, Conway and Carolina Charlie have gotta' be smilin'.

-Wynn Hayden*