Rock Opera Review

The Drive By Truckers, a southern five piece arming themselves with a whopping three guitars, are the modern day Stillwater, Cameron Crowe's all-time favorite fictional rock band from the early 1970s. The Truckers do possess a recognizable Crazy Horse sound and on their four year old album, Southern Rock Opera, they not only sing about the 70s, they recapture them - in a good way. Most derivitive music (not to mention the deathly painful trends in retro clothing) is vapid and empty. The Truckers, however, possess a passionate ability to deliver garage music like it's supposed to be heard; raw and gritty, lotsa guitar and huge solos, pentatonic riffing and indecipherable singing about that swamp swamp swamp swamp music. This concept album is the coolest one to rear its head in a while; there's even something that doesn't often pop up. Imagine artists and listeners with the attention spans to actually write and constantly listen to a cycle of songs that tell an overarching story and not just a five-minute ditty before the iPod shuffle kicks into something from your friend's record collection? DBT retell the story of a fated young man's life that mirrors the career of southern rock in the form of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Fiery crash just at their creative peak James Dean sort of thing. The Truckers don't win any awards for the structure of their songs but what they do deliver (thankfully as so many great bands' recorded music is hollow) is soulfull, simple mythical images that only hold true value when backed by wailing Les Pauls and thundering bass and drums. Did rock die in 1977? Surely not but as the Freebird rises from the ashes only to crash again, this southern band attempts to call Lazarus out of his tomb and I think I hear the door opening. After listening to this album twice today, I've changed my mind about their performance last week; I think I actually "get" them. Now if only I could see them again. Good thing my brother will have that chance, especially since the Truckers are opening up for the Black Crowes on July 29 at Penn's Landing, BECAUSE HE'S GOING TO THE CONCERT. Happy birthday, hermano.