Brent Bennett and the Movers’ The Movers Are In Town is a solid CD of eleven original songs written either by Bennett himself or by Bennett with Rob York that run the gamut of human emotions, well-crafted songs performed very well that evoke the golden age of country music’s master composer/performers such as Johnny Cash, June Carter (who wrote Cash’s masterful “Ring of Fire”), Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson. The songs move in range from the exuberant “Mama’s Dance Hall Barbecue Barn” to the darkly moody “Two Dollar Pistol,” Bennett’s portrayal of a desperate man on his journey into the rings of Dante’s hell. Plenty of songs here, as de rigueur, of trouble women and rueful love, with the important proviso that all rise above the standard clichés and stereotyped images of pop-country music to demonstrate forcefully that even the standard, the staple, still has plenty of room for originality and the exercise of the poet’s muse. In this regard, “Cold December Day,” on the woman leaving her man, and the two in tandem of the woman-who’s-less-than-meets-the-eye, “Movie of the Week” and “She’s Artificial,” stand out, while the rueful “I Was Just Like You (To Someone Just Like Me)” is a beautifully-told tale of love’s tables turning. Ending The Movers Are In Town is a populist anthem, “I’m an American Man,” a fit celebration of the working person. Brent Bennett and the Movers—Bennett, lead vocals and multi-tracked guitars and keyboards; W.D. Spade, bass and backing vocals; and Matt Allen, drums—do a powerhouse job of handling the musical chores, creating a vibrant music that partakes not just of country, but also blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and classic rock that is all of these, and yet none of these particularly: just good, down-home music that evokes comparisons, but never apes them. It’s an exciting music, and full of surprises—such as the subdued heavy-metal feel of “Long Black Thunder,” played the way heavy metal deserves to be played, straightforward guitar riffing without the gonzo pyrotechnics, which reminded this writer of Deep Purple at its best (which was most of Deep Purple). Bennett’s lead guitar licks are always appropriate: well-crafted, well thought-out, not sparse, but with not a single extraneous note either, and no flash for mere flash’s sake. Brent Bennett and the Movers’ The Movers Are in Town simply stands out, and properly joins Bennett’s two earlier, also masterful CDs, Brent Bennett and Rob York’s Crossing the Country and Bennett’s own Under My Own Power. Brent Bennett and the Movers is just an excellent band playing excellent, truly original music, period, and Bennett and the Movers are well deserving of greater exposure (which they are getting, all too typically, for truly paradigm American artists—in Europe and Australia), and this writer urges Bennett to get movin’ and make sure this CD gets heard where it needs to be heard, and not just confined to the Central Indiana environs. That means get it somehow to A&R persons in Nashville, Memphis and L.A., get it to the notice of Bloomington radio station WTTS (the only decent pop radio station that’s heard in Indy), find a distributor that will get it into stores and markets where urbane country-blues-rock is going to get a serious listen. In short, move this sucker, because it deserves it! Because the CD and the band really deserve it, and are too little known. After all our one-shot local stars who got national exposure only to quickly blow it and disappear as meteorically as they rose—the Wright Brothers, Henry Lee Summer, and the Why Store—turn the spotlight on a local band that really deserves to be in the light and on the national stage—Brent Bennett and the Movers!