Dustin Bentall You Are an Island

This eight-song enhanced album was produced by Vancouver pop-rock maestro Ryan Dahle. You Are An Island is the second release that Bentall and Dahle have worked together on - the first being being Dustin Bentall & the Smøkes 2012 release, Orion EP, which is the other half of same audio coin shared with of You Are An Island. It was born more out of circumstance than anything, explains Bentall, as to why Orion and You Are An Island are separate releases. We intended to make a full album but before we could put the finishing touches on it, we had to hit the road again and we needed to release something for that tour. Dustin has been making waves on the music scene ever since the release of his debut album, Streets With No Lights, which was one of the finest Canadian roots albums of '07. Six years back, it was the soaring pedal-steel guitar of Johnny Ellis that coloured Bentall's twangy odes to the road on Streets. The tone stayed true on Bentall's second album, Six Shooter. So, the obvious choice for both You Are An Island & Orion would've been another cowboy album but now it's the smoking fiddle work of Victoria-raised Kendel Carson that's stirring things up. It's especially great and fun if we're in front of a crowd who've never seen us, grins Bentall. They see the fiddle and they expect one thing and then they get this, like, heavy dose of rock 'n' roll coming from the fiddle that they've never seen before. It blows people's minds. That's not to say there's no country influence at all but faced with the Tom Petty-ness that propels You Are An Island's opening pop number, Every Chord That Rings, it's hard to continue looking at Bentall the way you used to. There's a depth that wasn't noticeable before--chameleon-like skills of the sort that Joseph Arthur hauls out to keep us guessing. The title track, You Are An Island is a sweetly melodic, rock-based tune more rightly belongs to Cookie Duster.