It's a funny old thing. Not life but music. You hear an album like Barney Bentall's "The Inside Passage" and you wonder how it got to be so polished and professional. Well, it seems he is very well known in Canada having been plying his trade since the seventies.
This album is nothing if not consistent. Opening with the west coast radio friendly slickness of "Hold My Heart", Mr Bentall shows his grasp of commercial song writing. Even when you think he might be diverting into more quirky territory as in On This Beautiful Night", he heads back on to the highway with the Eagles echoing in his ears. "Face to Face" also keeps to the middle lane but takes the opportunity to overtake Deacon Blue on the race to wedding ballad land.
Then things go a little bit country with "I Never Meant To Make You Cry" and "Papa Henry's Boy" (where have I heard that fiddle solo before?). The press release quotes the man himself as saying these songs loosely represent a journey through life which, if your eyes can handle the miniscule print on the sleeve insert, seems backed up by the lyrics but it also seems to be a journey through popular musical trends as well.
Even if this isn't an album to scare or even disturb you, Barney Bentall still deserves a lot of credit for putting together something so easy to listen to and while he might not be a rebel I bet he wears a hat. Time to take a quick look at the sleeve insert. I'm right - he does.