Drive-By Truckers

The rock opera isn't dead; it just smells funny - in this case, like whiskey breath, tour-van
stink and the smoking wreckage of Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1977 plane crash. In two discs and
twenty songs, Dixie's Drive-By Truckers explode the yahoo baggage of 1970s Southern
rock in a roaring memoir of growing up white, loud and desperate in the former
Confederacy. Southern Rock Opera deserves a fistful of stars just for the "Free B... More >

The alt-country reprobates enter three-guitar heaven on a what-it-says-it-is that gains power and bite as the fat lady's moment approaches. When Patterson Hood lets his bandmates write songs on the first disc, you can take a piss break, but Mike Cooley and Rob Malone both contribute winners on the second--about alcoholism and Cassie Gaines easing her brother into Lynyrd Skynyrd, respectively. Although George Wallace is treated to a crucial cameo, Skynyrd are the tragic heroes throughout. The last three songs get them on the plane, up in the air, and plummeting to their doom. Every detail and digression tells. (Grade - A-)