★★★★★
There are 12 songs on Riser. Three are anonymous and not very good party jams. Six are about heartbreak and run from decent to brilliant. Two are nostalgic, trying to work out the same tensions that Keith Urban does on his new single "Cop Car". Neither Urban nor Bentley has the virtues of classic mid-period Chesney, but they work really hard at mining that seam. Two are soppy, inspirational ballads...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-03-31
★★★★★
For much of his career, Dierks Bentley has operated as something of a throwback, a country crooner with more traditionalist tendencies who somehow manages to rub shoulders on radio with the genre's more modern incarnations. On Riser, Bentley trades some of that distinction for his own foray into a more modern rock-imbued arena-country, and while it takes away part of what makes the singer stand out, it also also underscores that he can do anything they can do and do it better...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2014-03-20
★★★★★
Although Dierks Bentley can party as hearty as that frat boy Luke Bryan, he consistently does a much better job at getting the mixture of good times and melancholy right. With Riser, he shows us how to live it up (even up in the friendly skies with "Drunk on a Plane"), but he also balances out these boozy celebration with an equally unhealthy share of headache inducing depression...
- www.roughstock.com
2014-02-26
★★★★★
Sometimes tapping your strongest track as an album opener is a dangerous move. Country superstar Dierks Bentley's starts with such promise, nailing listeners with "Bourbon in Kentucky" (a rocking, genre-defying tune featuring Kacey Musgraves on backing vocals); but it nails us so well that everything thereafter operates as an extended denouement...
- exclaim.ca
2014-03-04
★★★★★
Forget hard times - these days, too many country stars are just looking for the party. Compared to what gets played on country radio, Dierks Bentley can almost sound like a traditionalist, with his hickory voice and songs about drinking, and whose tones range on his seventh album from tormented ("Bourbon in Kentucky") to goofy ("Drunk on a Plane"). And to his credit, when he sings about his truck on "I Hold On," it's a heartfelt tribute to a well-built thing that reminds him of his dead dad...
- www.rollingstone.com
2014-02-25
★★★★★
At a time when musicians mix genres with more combinations than a Rubik's Cube, it's all the more difficult to identify artists who align themselves with one particular sound. But bringing numerous styles together isn't necessarily a bad thing, as evidenced by Dierks Bentley's fifth album, Up on the Ridge. The country artist takes his tunes in a different direction, namely to the foothills of Appalachia...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
It's probably best to go on and get this out of the way up front. The type of people who enjoy reading reviews in publications devoted to the art and craft of songwriting - and I'll lump those of us who do the writing of them in with this group - might find themselves approaching a back-to-mainstream-country Dierks Bentley album that comes on the heels of an artistic-freedom-flaunting Dierks Bentley album with a bit of trepidation...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2012-03-12
★★★★★
"Home", the second single and title track off Dierks Bentley's sixth album, uses a black-and-white photo of the American flag painted on a building for its digital-single cover art, immediately making you think it's a patriotic song. It is, but it's the rare patriotic hymn that isn't strident and acknowledges that the United States can do wrong, that we're still in the process of growing into the sort of democracy the founding fathers wished to create...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-02-09
★★★★★
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...
- www.roughstock.com
2012-02-06