Dierks Bentley

Like most of these, Dierks Bentley seems amiable enough, and, on this debut album, he makes each required stop on the stardom trail: rascally, boot-scoot humor ("Bartenders, Etc."), gauzy nostalgia ("My Last Name"), honky tonk swagger ("I Bought the Shoes"), boozy self-pity ("Whiskey Tears"), goofy outtake endings ("How Am I Doin'"), and, in "Distant Shore," an actually fairly complex purée of romantic revenge, poetic intoxication, and Biblical allusion.