Drive-By Truckers - Southern Rock Opera (Dig)
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Drive-By TruckersBrand: DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2002-07-16
Music Label: Lost Highway
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Days Of Graduation
- Ronnie and Neil
- 72 (this highway's mean)
- Dead, Drunk, And Naked
- Guitar Man Upstairs
- Birmingham
- The Southern Thing
- The Three Great Alabama Icons
- Wallace
- Zip City
- Moved
- Let There Be Rock
- Road Cases
- Women Without Whiskey
- Plastic Flowers On The Highway
- Cassie's Brother
- Life In The Factory
- Shut Up And Get On The Plane
- Greenville To Baton Rouge
- Angels And Fuselage
Free Music Notes for Southern Rock Opera (Dig)
Free Music Review: Southern Rock is Dead/Long Live Southern Rock!
Hit: 5 Stars
The Drive-By Truckers are a still-thriving, though much-altered band as of this writing (October 2008). They recorded albums before and after "Southern Rock Opera" (SRO was intially released in 2001), but this release represents their creative peak and probably their ultimate artistic statement...at least, so far.
Like many so-called "concept" albums, there's not always a straight-line, A-to-B narrative path here, although there is an overall similar vibe to many songs and there are clearly reoccurring subjects and themes. Some of the many, wide-ranging topics addressed (or at least touched upon) during these 94 minutes (spread over two discs) include: Alabama politics and cultural touchstones, dead-end small town life, Southern manhood, racism, heavy drinking and drug use as youthful escapism or as a coping mechanism, swamps, fatal car crashes (and the subsequent void left in the lives of the loved ones of the departed), Arena Rock of the 70's, and above all, Lynyrd Skynyrd. Skynyrd's story is mentioned or recounted in quite a few of the songs, especially during the Act 2 portion; the band serves as the ultimate symbol of Southern nobodies headed for nowhere who came from nothing to rise to near the top of the Rock world, but who plummeted to tragedy at their peak 31 years ago. Skynyrd's trajectory and the album's essentially follow one another, so that the tragic end of Lynyrd Skynyrd (The Ronnie Van Zandt-lead, "real" version of the band, that is) coincides with the end of the album.
Lynyrd Skynyrd's three-guitar attack is the blueprint for the music of this album as well, although this is not a Skynyrd impersonation and there are no Skynyrd cover versions. This is definitely Southern Rock but with a an edgy, modern vibe to it. The sound manages to be highly evocative of Skynyrd (and some of their imitators) while still mining a fairly original hard-driving vein. In SRO, a veritible stack of great songs is skillfully fleshed out with a definite Southern swagger and attack. It's surprising to find such a strong tribute to Skynyrd that doesn't resort to blind hero worship, maudlin sappiness or blatant imitation. The mightily rocking performances here are able to hold their own against any of the touchstone bands of the Southern Rock genre, including Skynyrd.
For those new to the DBT or the SRO album: the primary songwriting and thus lead singing is done by Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. Cooley's smooth baritone coats songs like "72 (This Highway's Mean)" or "Zip City" in a gooey layer of southern-accented, easy-to-digest tones, which nicely offsets Hood's crackly, high tenor, gargle-with-Drano, Alabama-bred croak. That voice is definitely an acquired taste, but there's no escaping the emotional resonance of Hood's vocals on songs like "Angels and Fuselage" (the last song, yet reportedly one of the first songs written for this album) or "Plastic Flowers on the Highway". Adding a third voice to the proceedings is former DBT guitarist Rob Malone, whose "Moved" and "Cassie's Brother" (which also features a vocal cameo from Kelly Hogan) are great additions. Malone also supplies the lead vocals to the Hood-penned "Wallace", which is sung gleefully from the Devil's point of view as he anticipates the imminent arrival of former-segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace's soul into Hell.
Though a song or two can get a bit tedious (two spoken word songs, "Days of Graduation" and "The Three Great Alabama Icons", is about 1 ½ spoken word songs too many), this album bears up to many repeated listenings and delivers the gamut of emotions and moods for over an hour and half. Hope and despair vie for your attention, as they often do in subsequent DBT releases. The "rags to riches" cycle of the rock band, whether it's Skynyrd or the fictional "Betamax Guillotine" mentioned in the liner notes, occupies a fair share of the narrative. The whole package flows together quite well through different phases of blistering uptempo scorchers (such as "Guitar Man Upstairs" or "Shut Up and Get on the Plane") and slower, quieter numbers ("Birmingham" or the desolately lonely "Moved"). It's hard not to get choked up by the time the slow-motion ending of "Angels and Fuselage" crawls around---by then you'll realize that these guys have delivered one hell of a moving piece of work here. Though this music stands quite ably on its own merits, it'll also have a strange side-effect: it'll make you want to dig out your old Skynyrd stuff---and for all of the right reasons. If you weren't a Skynryd fan before this, falling in love with this DBT disc can serve as a perfect incentive to discover what all of the fuss was about with that band of Florida misfits back between '73 and '77.
This 2 disc set is a must for those looking for modern-sounding, guitar-based, gut-bucket-yet-intelligent Rock and Roll with a Southern twist. SRO has one boot firmly planted in the Southern Rock past and the other one wedged into the unfriendly, post-millennium music landscape where sounds such as these are an endangered species. They certainly show no fear about devoting a two disc set to a nearly outmoded style of Rock. Do yourself a favor and let this free bird of a concept album fly out of your speakers or headphones regularly.
Southern Rock Opera (Dig) Poster
No Description AvailableNo Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
Title: SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA
Street Release Date: 07/16/2002
Genre: ROCK/POP
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