5 & Dimers
If It’s All a Game
Denver’s 5 & Dimers play an almost kitchy, over-the-top blend of Bakersfield Americana, and syrupy, Telecaster and pedal steel heavy, ’60s-era country. Some of the tracks on their debut If It’s All A Game — like the opening “She Loved The Devil Out of Me” and “Truckstop Girl” — seem so exaggerated that they’re almost dismissible as country novelties, but when the quintet hits the title track “If It’s All A Game” all the novelty is cast aside and the authenticity pours forth to show the band’s ample country skills. They also flex those muscles when they re-work and countrify the old hit by The Temptations “(I Know) I’m Losing you,” and their Hank Williams Sr. cover of “I Saw The Light” is mesmerizing, a re-tooling that has all of the grit of the original but with a bonafide, albeit modern sound that is a stellar nod to the 1948 version.
