An album of covers is a task most artists would prefer to leave unchallenged, the fear of doing injustice to just one classic song is enough to put them off, let alone an entire collection. But the occasional talent grabs onto a song that belongs to another person, and turns it into a song of their own, becoming a storyteller that replays the narrative in a completely new way. All Dressed Up and Smelling Of Strangers is Micah P Hinson’s way of showing that not only does he have a penchant for his own songs, but for other peoples as well.Many would say that Hinson is an unappreciated craftsman, fading unfairly into the shadows and being outshone in recognition by other, perhaps less deserving, Americana acts. With a voice that could match husky greats such as Tom Waits and Johnny Cash, Hinson’s blues tinged records have positively vibrated with brooding melancholy and emotionally charged fragility.These brooding sounds seem set to stay with All Dressed Up and Smelling Of Strangers Volume 1 and 2, a simultaneous release of cover songs planned to be released on two separate records. Volume 1 is the softer of the two, laden with the simplicity of Hinson’s despondent quiver and not much else, with only an acoustic guitar accompanying him. Volume 2 is instrumentally heavier and fast paced, showing the adaptability of Hinson’s talent.Choosing a mirage of songs spanning across decades, Hinson often opts for songs that you wouldn’t necessarily anticipate him covering, for example Emmy The Great’s ‘We Almost Had A Baby‘, and Pedro The Lion’s ‘Slow and Steady’, and projecting them in an entirely different light. Hinson’s voice gives ‘We Almost Had A Baby’ a mournful and pensive aura, a world away from the modern and quirky original. He is careful in transferring the songs from one genre to the other, altering them enough so as to not arrogantly insult the original creators by attempting to do it exactly as they do, but a lot better.However there are other moments when he is unable to stop himself from jumping on the covers bandwagon, covering songs such as Bob Dylan’s 'The Times They Are A Changin'’ and Frank Sinatra’s 'My Way'. Although these covers are not musically flawed, they do defy the incentive of delivering something just a little bit different to the original, or indeed the multitude of covers that the original spawned. Even the baritone vibrations of Hinson cannot bring anything particularly new to such songs, which have been reinvented more often than Madonna’s face.All Dressed Up and Smelling Of Strangers is a ‘cosy night by the fire’ kind of record, the sort of cosiness that is idealistically spent listening to some of the best music from the past few decades. Through releasing this record alone, Hinson has proven that he can stand the test of time, performing some of the worlds best known songs from all along the timeline, and performing them with, at worst, bravery and character, and at best, with vision and innovation. Hinson is like the grandfather from all our childhoods, tucking us into bed and reading our favourite stories, delivering them in that beloved deep grizzly voice and giving them his own customised, exhilarating twist.Micah P. Hinson on MySpace