Deryl Dodd

More like full circle and now halfway back for this Fort Worth-based returnee from the battle between real and ridiculous up in Nashville. Dodd's two previous, Pearl Snaps and Stronger Proof, found him bucking Music City conventions and waving a Lone Star banner of independence. Now he sounds too often like he's hoping to get back on country radio with this set produced by his longtime pal Brett Beavers, who has recently made his bones in commercial country by producing the seemingly rootsy (don't be fooled) Dierks Bentley. The soap suds on (the admittedly clever) "Thanks to the Man" and "Solid Ground"--both of which could have been truly tear-jerking, George Jones-y, hard-country weepers--as well as "That's the Truth" (and the presence of Tex-Tenn straddler Jack Ingram on said cut) imply that they're aimed a bit too much at the suburban MILF crowd. Yet cuts like Mike Henderson's "Wearin' a Hole" and the Jim Lauderdale/Clay Blaker-penned "It's Only 'Cause You're Lonely" indicate that there could have been a smokin' honky-tonk set here...if the arrangements weren't so Music Row cookie cutter. Instead of just singing that "there's nothing wrong with keeping it on the edge and out of the middle" on "Into Outlaw," that's just what Dodd should have done.