Sunday, May 11, 2008
A+E, Music, Reviews

Dierks Bentley

“Greatest Hits: Every Mile A Memory” (Capitol Nashville)

Courtesy of Capitol Nashville

DIERKS BENTLEY
w/Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan
Country Fair 2008
Friday, May 16
Lakewood Amphitheatre
$15-$50
404-249-6400
www.wkhx.com

Five years and three albums into his career, Dierks Bentley is a bona fide country music star. With an easygoing drawl that sounds like it comes from a much older man and a knack for crafting poignant ballads and catchy honky-tonk rockers equally adept at lodging themselves onto radio playlists, he stands next to Sugarland atop a short list of modern young country acts with the goods to churn out dozens of hits with the proficiency and longevity of an Alan Jackson or a George Strait.

But it’s difficult to remember that while listening to his first greatest hits album, a premature collection of singles, two new songs and a handful of live tracks. “Greatest Hits,” from its cover photo to its sequencing, packages Bentley (perhaps unintentionally) as a slick, middle-of-the-road balladeer.

Not that the album (which just overstays its welcome at 18 tracks) lacks examples of Bentley’s sense of humor (“So So Long”), his rocking side (the effortlessly engaging “Every Mile A Memory”) or his mostly convincing bids to position himself as a free-spirited, love ’em and leave ’em cowboy (“Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go),” “Lot of Leavin’ Left to Do,” “I Ain’t Living Long Like This”). But the herky-jerky track list favors the ballads (which are effective, especially “My Last Name”) that when the superlative “Settle For a Slowdown” rolls around, its emotional impact is muted. This hasty compilation, probably a record-label cash-in, doesn’t do this promising, multifaceted artist justice. 2.5 STARS—Kevin Forest Moreau