Maybe good dogs do go to heaven, but mediocre ones probably don’t. And Tyler Childers’ new album “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?” is mediocre at best.

At first glance, Childers’ fifth studio album, which hit streaming services Sept. 30, seems promisingly meaty, with 24 tracks and 108 minutes of listening time. But a closer look reveals it’s just eight songs performed three ways on three albums.

It’s an unoriginal attempt at originality that Childers doesn’t need to make. His music is well-loved precisely because it has such a classic sound – so his shot at a more modern style alienates the fans who love his music for what it is.

One of the songs is a cover:  “Old Country Church,” first performed by Hank Williams. One is a slower rendition of the titular track from his chart-topping 2017 album “Purgatory,” and two more are purely instrumental. In other words, there are only four original tracks with vocals, and one of the four is the single “Angel Band” which listeners had already heard.

Childers regularly performs covers and his 2020 album “Long Violent History” was mostly instrumental. But covers and instrumental tracks are not his strength. His highly acclaimed album “Purgatory” has 10 beautiful, original tracks. Fans were hoping for another highly original album of the same caliber as “Purgatory” and Childers delivered only mediocrity with “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?”

For an example of Childers’ lyric abilities, Childers sings “Tattoos” in the third track of “Purgatory” about his struggles with drugs and alcohol and how it has harmed his relationships: “Flint strikes out to pierce the dark / Cause a flame from just one spark / Fill the room with smoke so harsh / She exhales a memory.”

On the surface, this line says he’s smoking to get high and forget the woman he’s not with anymore. But it also implies the woman was a spark in his dark life. In her absence, his life is hazy again, like a room full of smoke.

Nothing on “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?” comes close to this.

The central problem with “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?” of the apparent belief that, in music, different means better. The new album is unique from Childers’ usual sound, but not in a good way. It’s just a failed experiment in originality.

Many appealing elements of Childers’ style are still present in “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?” like his raw vocals and heavy references to classic bluegrass songs. There’s also still a wandering element to his sound. “Shake the Frost,” for example, sounds like a walk through the woods of West Virginia with soothingly repetitive melodies and the constant hum of his voice like footsteps on leaves.

The nail in the coffin of the album’s shortcomings is the fact that the “Hallelujah” and “Jubilee” versions of each song are nearly indistinguishable. The “Jubilee” versions feature some artificial horn sounds and a few samples of gritty, vintage audio bites, but otherwise, they’re the same as their smoother, groovier “Hallelujah” counterparts. It calls into question what the purpose of a triple album is if the repeat tracks are hardly different from each other.

The “Joyful Noise” versions of the songs are incredibly distinct from the “Hallelujah” and “Jubilee” versions – but not in a good way. Childers’ signature style is an earthy Appalachian bluegrass country sound. It sets him apart from his modern country counterparts. The “Joyful Noise” songs are an overproduced mess of electronic instrumentation and poor attempts at sampling.

The new tracks on “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?” are enjoyable, if a little slow. But they’re lost in translation. With so few of them and the attempt to make a triple album falling short, this album was a huge letdown for listeners. 

Childers’ is vying for novelty, but what made him novel before was his adherence to tradition in a world that wants to discard it.