As the band’s very name indicates, Ben Bell and the Stardust Boys features a cowboy outfit backing a wry singer-songwriter, one who’s done time in bars from Alabama and Austin. Now working the corridor from the Crescent City to the Red Stick, the Boys (replete with upright bass), speak the language: Rockabilly, Tejano, Western Swing, honky-tonk. But their transition from ironic cover band to real border-flavored Americana is fitful at best.

Bell does a pretty good high lonesome yodel, but he doesn’t have the conviction of his twang just yet, and that lack of presence—along with a rather ordinary lyrical approach—keeps the boys from really taking off and flying on what is essentially their debut. It’s great that anyone’s covering Ernest Tubb’s “Heartaches by the Number” or the Elvis deep cut “Paralyzed,” but they shouldn’t immediately stand out so far from the Stardust originals.

Worse yet, these four tend to fall back on clichés and jokes while searching for their own voice. “What You’ve Done to Me” keeps threatening to turn into the Tennessee Two, while the title track keeps getting interrupted by silly “Hernando’s Hideaway” callbacks. If you just want the groove, Sam Short’s excellent Telecaster leads can distract you from the flatness of title-deep songs such as “My Gal Is Laughing.” Most of the time on Matador, however, Bell and his boys are just a good idea whose time has already come. And gone.