Dierks Bentley has just released his seventh album Home, the official follow-up to the critically acclaimed Up On The Ridge from 2010, the album that many consider the best of his career. Home is nearly as good an album and deftly balances traditional tones with modern sounds.
After the creatively pleasing and critically hailed Up On The Ridge album, Dierks Bentley really had three ways he could go with his career. He could stay on that path which was more rootsy/bluegrass/edgy or he could revert to the sound of his previous hits like “Feel That Fire” and “Sideways” or he could return to the amalgam of Up On The Ridge and his mainstream country sounds. While many fans of Up on the Ridge would’ve chosen #1, Dierks has gone for #3. And what a smart choice it was. This is the sound that was featured on his first, self-titled album and it’s expanded upon here on Home, Dierks’ seventh album.
The title track “Home” is the second single from the album but it hints at the smart songwriting that was born from the Up On The Ridge experience. A patriotic song that’s neither pretentious nor jingoistic, “Home” has an ‘atmospheric’ melody that I said in my review of the single that it was ‘epic in scale and melody without ever succumbing to being too loud or too orchestral for some tastes.’ The first single, “Am I The Only One” was released nearly a year before the release of this album but it took a while to hit the top of the country charts after the Ridge excursion. The song starts off with the amalgam sound of that album and earlier Bentley songs and is married to a lyric that’s a boozy, light-hearted jam worthy of the #1 status it eventually secured while retaining some of the mojo that made “What What I Thinkin’” such an instant hit in 2003.
Dierks Mixes Classic Sound with Modern Edge on "Diamonds Make Babies" and "Gonna Die Young"
“Diamonds Make Babies” recalls fun two-step rockers from the 1990s or his own earlier album cuts but this time I have a feeling the tune could be a potential radio hit, something that can also be said about mid-tempo “Breathe You In,” which is a song that may be the most familiar sounding song of this album – it really compares to past ballads in both melody and imagery. “Gonna Die Young” has an obvious country/rock melody to it along with more Dierks’ trademark spit-fire vocal delivery and that too leads me to believe that this one could be the third single if they wanna play it safe a little bit. This isn’t to say it’s a bad song by any measure, it’s just a little safe.
A song that does sound different for Dierks Bentley is the melodically interesting “The Woods.” It has a sing-a-long melody and is very contemporary but being an example of his amalgamation of the roots music meeting contempary sounds, the lead guitar and percussive beat never overrides the mandolins, in fact the mandolin is as much a percussive instrument here as the bass and drums are. Written with American Bang front man Jaren Johnston and Jon Randall Stewart, the song is just a dynamite tune. 5-1-5-0”is a tune that follows the amalgam of past Bentley with “Ridge” Dierks and it, too, would make for a fun radio single. “Heart of a Lonely Girl” is one of the five tunes on this 12 track record not co-written by Dierks (“Tip It On Back,” “Gonna Die Young,” “In My Head,” and “When You Gonna Come Around” are the others). This one has a celtic feel to it and definitely has more of the ‘Grass sound to it while also having quite a jovial melody despite the title.
"Home" Ranks Among Dierks Bentley's Best Albums
The sweet “Thinking Of You,” a song written for Dierks’ children, is a tune that rivals the best songs he’s ever written. Not unlike Radney Foster’s “Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)” or Josh Kelley’s “Naleigh Moon” this song is about the profound effect having children had on him. His daughter Evie also sings a few bars of the song as the album closes. It’s a nice way to end a very strong album, easily one of Dierks’best albums in a career of strong albums.
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