Dierks Bentley – ‘Feel That Fire’ Review

15 years ago Liv Carter Comments Off on Dierks Bentley – ‘Feel That Fire’ Review

Dierks Bentley – Feel That Fire (out February 3, 2009)

The lead-off single and title track Feel That Fire left me quite underwhelmed. A song with that title should have more…, well, fire. But singles, thankfully, are not always good indicators for the entire album.

The CD comes with its share of vintage Dierks: partysong Sideways, the energetic Here She Comes and the wonderfully bubbly Little Heartwrecker, which is a re-write of What Was I Thinking.

On previous albums Dierks has always managed to be sensitive without getting sentimental and he does so again here. I Want to Make You Close Your Eyes is a very pretty love song and Beautiful World is indeed beautiful. The lovely You Hold Me Together is a real stand-out.

Also as on previous records, this one has some almost forgettable tracks: Pray, a bittersweet post-breakup song is rather bland, as is Life On the Run.

Harder to pin down is Last Call. Its pure bluegrass fun sounds uninspired, the too big production of I Can’t Forget Her drowns out his voice and Better Believer while having great lyrics still fails to impress.

Overall, I think this is a good, solid album. It holds a couple of great songs, has no real lows and flows along nicely. But it does lack a little but of exuberance and the very light production a little bit of ambition. Dierks, like Blake Shelton, is an artist who I would like to see kick things into a higher gear. Feel That Fire is good and it will rack up many plays on my iPod but just like Blake’s Starting Fires it’s an album that doesn’t make me feel, you guessed it, that fire.

Liv Carter

Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
Liv Carter

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