Review: Hot Country Knights, The K is Silent

Not since Garth Brooks has an esteemed country artist unleashed a dubious alter ego on an unsuspecting world. But unlike the beforementioned Chris Gaines project, Hot Country Knights — fronted by Dierks Bentley alongside his road band, all in laughably bad wigs — is supposed to be funny, gleefully skewering country clichés while delivering credibly twangy 90s-style corkers custom-made for juke-joint hoedowns. 

Witness the unabashedly kooky Pick Her Up which, though featuring the bona fide Travis Tritt, nevertheless scorches hayseed anthems with the killer chorus, “If you wanna do right on a Saturday night/pick her up in a pickup truck.” Elsewhere You Make It Hard, co-written and co-starring a commendably straight-faced Terri Clark, flips the hallmark weepy torch ballad on its noggin, while offering the best/worst cheeseball video this side of Whitesnake. 

That’s saying something after witnessing Asphalt which finds its hoary protagonist, rocking 70s-era jeans and a midriff-baring T-shirt (naturally) ditching his woman for the road. Literally for pavement. Somewhere, a Wichita lineman just rolled over in his grave. If there has ever been a more unabashedly goofy yet thoroughly listenable record issued in the name of country music, I’d like to know about it. Yee-haw! 

The K Is Silent was released May 1, 2020 on Capitol Records Nashville.
Listen to it here