He looks the part. His baritone twang, so reminiscent of Cash, matches. The song titles, the lyrics, heck even the album cover, they all fit the notion. Everything except the actual music. For the sake of accuracy, very little of Paul Cauthen's Room 41 is worthy of the designation "country."

Named for the quarters in the Dallas Belmont Hotel he called home for two years, Cauthen's second LP is the result of, as the listener can quickly intuit, doing a lot of drugs, drinking a lot of alcohol, and engaging in a host of other activities befitting a "country outlaw" coping with a serious breakup. While that nomenclature hits closer to the truth, it still fails to encompass that much of Room 41, with its rock and roll, soul, and even elements of gospel and funk, sounds more akin to something from Dire Straits than many of the contemporaries Cauthen is lumped in with. 

I understand the genre under which Cauthen would typically fall doesn't entice many a listener. Don't let the guise fool you. If you get over what it isn't, there’s plenty of space in Room 41 for you.