February 21st, 2012 
James Shotwell 
Artist: Dierks Bentley
Album: Home
Genre: Country
Label: Capitol
As it sits, I currently have a broken truck parked outside of my house waiting to be fixed, my brother’s ’80s Camaro which is several different colors – none of which being the color it came out of the factory with – I am actively in the market for a 40 year old, ½ ton pick up truck for which I will have no practical use for, other than sitting in the truck bed in a lawn chair drinking beer, and there is a TH350 Chevy transmission from 1970-something sitting in my garage for no particular reason, but I mean, you never know when you might need one. So realistically speaking, I think its fair to say that I’ve got a couple deep-rooted hillbilly tendencies. This advanced sense of American-ness that I possess gives me a highly developed sense for good southern rock and country music; another trait that I am quite proud of, for the record. I am however, rather picky though, I love bands from all reaches of the Americana sound, from Lucero, to Deer Tick, to The Hold Steady, and everything in between, but I’m rather picky when it comes to quality. So I feel as though I am a very well qualified candidate to talk about Home, the new Dierks Bentley album; a fan of the general genre, yet obnoxiously opinionated, aren’t critics fantastic?
The tricky thing that Bentley had to deal with when writing this album, is the fact that country is a very sensitive genre, its entirely too easy to ruin for the sake of commercial appeal, at this point it becomes an abomination I have dubbed “sorority girl country”; music that gets blasted from the radio’s of late model pick up trucks driven by the aforementioned sorority girls – but bought by daddy, of course – scattered throughout college parking lots across the country, so they have something to listen to while they get hammered off a 30 case of Bud Light. Not music, but white noise with a commercially tasteful twang. Home started out promising enough, the banjo that kicked off that album hinting that it may be a quality piece of American tradition, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. In fact, I had entirely made up my mind on the album about 25 seconds in; after Bentley sang about “Calling his bros up” so they could “throw down” and get “tore up”. I nearly gave up here, but after I said some kind words in memorial of the once great country that is America, I pressed on, unfortunate as that may have been. And not that it was any surprise, but the rest of the album was of the same abysmal caliber of dim-witted pseudo-country, featuring such lyrical masterpieces as, “Diamonds Make Babies”, a social commentary about how diamonds make babies, and then babies make mommas, and then blah-blah-blah, women are all nuts and controlling, so watch out; a real PSA to the young men of our nation. Instrumentally, everything was fairly dull and cliché as well, which is honestly sort of expected from such a mainstream release, however, I will give credit to the banjo work, which was actually quite good. And I should note that that is the only compliment this album will receive from me. I may be overreacting, but its just so easy to bastardize country and turn it into a mockery, and this Dierks Bentley is one of the worst offenders I’ve heard in some time.
At this point, I usually try and remain somewhat impartial, or at least note some points for both sides of the argument, but this isn’t a review where I remark the good against the bad, and encourage the reader to take note of my sometimes humble opinion, and then check it out for themselves and derive their own opinion, this time I’m just going to recommend you skip this one. Unless you’re looking for some country for the CD player in your 2012 Ford F-150 to help you wash down that Keystone before the next Toby Keith concert, in which case it doesn’t really matter what you listen to, steer clear of Home.
You might as well just turn on the radio.
SCORE: 1/10
Reviewed by: Mike Hogan
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Oh Mike, you apparently aren’t a real “American” if you hated this album. Nothing could be more country. Don’t think because you own a pickup truck, an old camero and a rotting transmission in your garage (clean it out!!) that gives you the knowledge, know how, or “ear” for country music. You are certainly NOT QUALIFIED to reiview this album based on the above clutter or any other album that falls under the genre of country. Have a garage sale, and go HOME.