Drive By Truckers “A Blessing and A Curse” CD Review
“A Blessing and A Curse” CD Review
www.drivebytruckers.com
Label: New West
Review by: ~Buckshot Georgie~
The year 2006 has brought us yet another gorgeous Drive By Truckers Digipack CD, complete with the usual insert booklet of more weird and beautiful artwork from Wes Freed. The last several releases by the Alabama indie band have had a very wicked cool appearance that is almost like a Confederate twist on album art by Tyla from Dogs D’Amour. For those who haven’t caught the DBT train yet, the songwriting duties are split just about evenly by members Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell so it’s the kind of band with three distinct personalities but it works. Patterson Hood is more of a Neil Young guy. Not the best of singers but certainly a very honest poet and passive observer of the southern experience. Mike Cooley is less prolific but when he writes a song, it’s just about guaranteed it’s gonna be the best one on the record. He sings with a drawl, being a little more like modern country/western singer than the other guys. The newest member Jason Isbell seems to be equally split between writing heartland anthems ala John Mellencamp and ballads for sensitive alcoholics. He’s a goddamned good guitar player too. It’s good stuff.For those of us who liked rock n roll and grew up down south, I can think of no band that captures that experience quite like Drive By Truckers. We were the kids who worked the tobacco fields in our early teens and spent the money ($.10 per stick of speared tobacco) on a shitty old used car that would drive us to the cool record stores in our nearest major city to buy albums by bands like The Stooges, New York Dolls and The Replacements. Meanwhile, the only live music entertainment we had a chance to experience happened whenever acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Ted Nugent played our state fairs. Our grandparents liked Ernest Tubb and Flatt & Scruggs while our parents owned albums by Waylon Jennings, The Eagles and Kris Kristofferson. All of this was our musical education. On every DBT album, you become reacquainted with the characters and the reality there. The big haired town slut you were in love with that had no interest in you yet still indiscriminately shagged every redneck meathead in town. The old WWII vet in a wheelchair that swears he “never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima.” The ever-lingering nervousness that your nearest Ford plant might close its doors soon and bring even more poverty to your family. A family that still has been unable to upgrade from living in a trailer home that could be plowed over and completely destroyed by a tornado at any given moment in the springtime. We were not all the fundamentalist evangelical Republicans you’d think we were, as DBT noted by saying “Goddamn Reagan in the White House and no one there gives a damn” on their previous album The Dirty South. Yes, a few folks down there were resentful that Reagan spent a lot of money on Star Wars while folks were starving. That asshole redneck cop that pulled you over for a burnt out headlight and searched your car for pot and cocaine because you had long hair. All those tall tale bedtime stories your Granddad told you. The urban legends. We would have forgotten that had DBT not reminded us. The South is ugly, mean and loaded with mosquitoes but it’s also beautiful and deserves better. It’s all there. DBT totally nails the southern experience on every album with a clarity that is so stunning and just so doggone dead-on that you just can’t believe they must have lived it too.
So about this new DBT stuff… They only ever make about 1/3 a masterpiece album. The last album “Dirty South” contained about three of the best songs you’ve ever heard with “Where The Devil Don’t Stay,” “The Day John Henry Died,” and “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac.” The rest of the album wasn’t quite as strong as those tracks were and it contained a few stinkers but nonetheless, the storytelling was honest, poetic and completely suitable for road trip music. A Blessing and A Curse really doesn’t contain any of the adrenaline inducing anthems of the previous release but it’s more even and consistent in quality. More “album rock” as they might say in the radio business. You’ll have to like The Replacements to dig this record. Boy, does a lot of it sound like the “Pleased To Meet Me” album with a southern spin. When they don’t sound like The Replacements or a Dixie interpretation of a Paul Westerberg solo record, they sound like Rolling Stones and The Faces. Of course, they’ll always sound a little bit like Crazy Horse no matter what they do… Can’t bitch about none of that.
Check out this lyric from this track called “Aftermath USA.” Not only does having your wife or girlfriend cheat on you hurt but it really stings like hell when the sonofabitch that fucked her has terrible tastes in music. You’d have be rock n roll nerd to really understand but it’s especially endearing that Patterson Hood took note in these lyrics:
The car was in the carport sideways
Big dent running down the side
Never seen anything as frightening
As when I took a look inside
Smell of musk and deception
Heel marks on the roof-line
Bad music on the stereo
All the seats in recline
Once again on this album, you really can’t get enough of Mike Cooley and there really aren’t enough of his songs on this record either. He gave us “Gravity’s Gone” this time around with it’s his trademark straight shootin’ country boy stuff with lyrics like “Between the champagne handjobs and the kissing ass by everyone involved, Cocaine rich comes quick and that’s why the small dicks have it all.” It’s still missing a really great Cooley song like “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”, “Shut Your Mouth (and Get Your Ass on the Plane” and “Women Without Whiskey.”
I don’t know if you’d call it neo-southern rock, Americana or alt-country but if you like southern rock, The Replacements and good Keith Richards guitarwork, get A Blessing and A Curse while it’s still on sale for $7.99 at Best Buy and plan a road trip somewhere.
Official Drive By Truckers Website
~Buckshot Georgie~
Comments
Buckshot plays Bass in Phoenix, AZ for The Earps and The Jeff Dahl Band, and is an independant contributor to DH. Thanks Georgie! ~WC~
