Riser CD

Each of singer/songwriter Dierks Bentley’s six previous albums has a unique sound reflecting his creative state of mind at that particular moment in time. The story continued on Feb. 25, 2014, when Bentley releasedRiser, a country project grounded in lyrical substance with a new sonic power that spotlights Bentley’s distinctive gravelly voice, one of the most original and recognizable in the genre.

I named the album RISER because the lyrics in that song perfectly articulate who I want to be, who I try to be, Bentley explains. There’s a lot of really intense material on this record, but there’s also a lighter side that is equally important in telling the story of the last two years of my life. When I first started writing for this album, I was in a place of grief over the loss of my dad, but over the course of the next 18 months, my wife and I had our son Knox, and I ended in a place of real joy and gratefulness. Both sides of that coin are what country music has always been about, and I hope that my fans can feel how much of myself I put into this project. It’s all out on the table, for sure.

To assemble the new album, Bentley enlisted producer Ross Copperman and executive producer Arturo Buenahora, Jr. Together, the trio mixed the immediacy of old-school live recording techniques with the experimental nature of new technologies. Buenahora matched Bentley with the right co-writers and songs. The result is RISER an album with a heightened depth, an increased vulnerability, and a greater sense of purpose in every word.