Dave Insley

AZ homeboy Dave Insley used to be a Nitpicker and a Trophy Husband. He was even in a Chaingang, but those days — and bands — are behind him. Insley went solo with Call Me Lonesome in 2005, distilling his years of honky-tonking around Arizona into pure country, which befits a guy who was the child of a farmer father and a truck-stop mom. This new record takes Insley one step further in defining his themes of regret, recrimination and redemption. There are a handful of done-wrong songs, but the moment he lets loose with a spirited shot at the old chestnut “South of the Border” — sharing vocals with hillbilly hummingbird Rosie Flores — almost everything that follows deals with dark matters. Death, Jesus, one dyin’ and a buryin’ — maudlin stuff, but from the heart. “And a lifetime of sins will wash away with a simple act of grace,” he sings. He also tells us that “God Loves the Working Man,” sings about a “White Cross,” and shares the tale of a dyin’ cowpoke who tells his son to put him in his saddle, load his gun, and light his cigarette. Hard to tell what did him in, but these requests might provide a clue or two.