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Brighter Than Creation's Dark  >>

DBT s brand new album is a Southern gothic rock n' roll masterpiece with 19 songs adding up to over 75 minutes of pure rock n roll. The band continues its notorious 3-guitar attack with the promotion of longtime sidekick John Neff to full member. Patterson Hood contributes 9 songs to the album (The Righteous Path, Daddy Needs A Drink), 7 songs from Mike Cooley (A Ghost To Most, Lisa's Birthday) and 3 songs from Shonna Tucker (The Purgatory Line). This it the first time Shonna has written the songs for a DBT album. All this is enhanced with musical contributions from he legendary Spooner Oldham.

As Patterson Hood says about the songs on the album, Stylistically, they run the gamut from old-timey sounding country to a heavy R&B influence. Some songs that are quieter than any we've ever recorded and some that rock harder than anything we've ever done. In the end it's still all Rock and Roll (which is why that will always be the description of choice to us when describing our music in stylistic terms).

Drive-By Truckers are one of the most unique recording artists and live bands in popular music today. The Truckers write about people, places and situations like no one else, and have build an amazing worldwide audience in the process.

Southern Rock Opera (Dig)  >>

You don't need a bottle of Jack or even a trace of Southern lineage to appreciate the genius of Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera. Without a hint of irony, the Athens, Georgia, quintet creates a fast-driving, hard-living tribute to the indelible music and legacy of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Like any good concept album, there's a modicum of plot and a theme to these 20 songs (loosely based around the rise and fall of fictitious Southern rock band Betamax Guillotine), but the best tracks make you forget the story line altogether: "Birmingham," "Zip City," and "Let There Be Rock." The "opera" aspects bog things down a bit--you probably only need to hear the spoken-word track "The Three Great Alabama Icons" once--but the overall concept still comes off without a hitch. The lyrics are great, the trio of electric guitars is blessed with raw production, and the tunes--though lacking the pop sensibility of, say, "Gimme Three Steps"--will have you cranking up the album for your friends. And, after a few spins of Southern Rock Opera, you might even find yourself digging out those old Skynyrd LPs to hear the real thing again. --Jason Verlinde

Moon Is the New Earth  >>

Rose Hill Drive's raw, emotive rock has earned the group high praises from both critics and fellow musicians alike. Rose Hill Drive grew up worshipping guitar-shredding groups like The Who and Van Halen. They never imagined the band they formed in high school would open up for both groups before even releasing an album. "If this doesn't make you want to pick up a Les Paul, you have no soul." -- Guitarist

The Dirty South  >>

The Dirty South is the sixth album by Muscle Shoals, Alabama-based Drive-By Truckers. While previous Southern rock bands have celebrated certain regional mythologies, this quintet revels in the towering glory of small, gritty realities. They can kick up a righteous storm, as on the country lick-filled opener "Where the Devil Don't Stay," or the swamp and fuzzy "Lookout Mountain." However, within the latter is a daunting verse: "If I throw myself off Lookout Mountain, No more for my soul to keep, I wonder who will drive my car, I wonder if my Mom will weep." It's clear these guys deliver emotional wallops at every turn. "Carl Perkins' Cadillac" honors the honesty of Sam Phillips, while writhing in the melancholy of changing times and circumstances. --David Greenberger

Decoration Day  >>

They earned wide acclaim with the double-disc Southern Rock Opera, a sprawling concept album about Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their three-guitar lineup and greasy look signify big, dumb rock in the minds of many, but their songwriting is relentlessly whip-smart. And what may be their greatest song, "The Living Bubba," is an ode to a righteous, hard-rocking redneck felled by AIDS. No, the Drive-By Truckers never do anything by the book, so it's no surprise that with Decoration Day, the band's first release for indie New West Records, Patterson Hood and his mates take another rewarding left turn. The album boasts a handful of crowd-pleasing, party-starting cuts, like the brash, cranky rocker "Hell No, I Ain't Happy" and the Stones ringer "Marry Me." Yet more common are moments of startling beauty (the steel solos on "The Deeper In" and "Loaded Gun in the Closet" and the jangling guitars, rolling melodies, and soulful fiddle breaks of "Heathens" and "My Sweet Annette") and heavy doses of recrimination and regret, as in the back-to-back suicide tunes "When the Pin Hits the Shell" and "Do It Yourself." --Anders Smith Lindall

Wires & The Concept of Breathing (Ocrd)  >>

This debut full-length showcases the band's finely tuned sound and progression from their previous EP. RIYL: AFI, Chiodos, Scary Kids Scaring Kids.

Pizza Deliverance  >>

To call the Drive-By Truckers an alt-country band is a disservice--to the Truckers and their Buzzcocks-meet-the-Outlaws brand of punk-rock twang, as well as to most alt-country bands, which hardly belong in the same county as DBT, let alone borrowing the same genre. This remastered re-release of the Alabama foursome's 1999 sophomore record picks up where its debut album Gangstabilly (also re-issued by New West Records) left off--fruitful storyteller Patterson Hood and his cotton-drawl vocals bobbing and weaving through the trepidations and peculiarities of his life in the Deep South. The Truckers abstain from some of the white-trash bulls-eyes and volume 11 blasters on their debut for a 14-song hootenanny about riding bulldozers in red clay, a reclusive uncle, giving up sex for the Lord, and a Memphis performance by the late shock-rocker G.G. Allin. The bluesy sing-a-long "Nine Bullets" features one round of lead for each of Hood's adversaries, but two songs later he harmoniously reminisces his great-grandmother in "Box of Spiders." It's a remarkable divergence that drives Pizza Deliverance and sets the table for the Southern Rock Opera that comes next. - Scott Holter

A Blessing and a Curse  >>

Known for two big-idea concept albums, Southern Rock Opera (dedicated to Lynyrd Skynyrd) and The Dirty South (a 70+ minute exploration of their Alabama roots), the Drive-by Truckers here go economical with a 45+ minute rock album. Three singers (all guitarists, to boot) ensure that moods shift often, even with every voice bearing a sand-blasted quality that grit-pocks everything. Patterson Hood tackles most of the tunes, sounding like a roughed-up Faces on "Aftermath USA," detailing drugs and deterioration against boogied-up guitars, and sounding a more sensitive side on "Goodbye" and "Little Bonnie" (another in a line of Truckers' funeral tunes). With a barrel-chested croak of a voice, Mike Cooley runs down the rudderless-ness of love and desperation on "Gravity's Gone" and slow, acoustic tenderness on "Space City." The loudest guitarist, Jason Isbell, takes on two tracks: "Easy on Yourself" and "Daylight," where he alternates between wry fury and a yearning pine for more time, more space. Isbell basks in an array of slide-guitar throwdowns, always leaving a signature sound the way Skynyrd's Allen Collins and Gary Rossington did in their glory days. All in all, this is a calmer Truckers set, less ragged and more polished--but rest assured: Their live sets still smoke like their 40 Watt Club DVD from 2005. --Andrew Bartlett

Relationship of Command  >>

From 1994-2000, At The Drive-In held the attention of music fans and critics alike. During their career, they released three albums and numerous EPs. You can hear their influence today on so many releases across the rock genre. Members have gone on to form The Mars Volta, Sparta, and various other projects. "Displaying an earnest intensity befitting pre-irony U2, At The Drive-In are an exhilarating and exhausting experience--the sight of five young men ever pushing against and beyond the limits of physical and emotional endurance with crusader zeal"--Rolling Stone.

Seemingly influenced in equal parts by hardcore punk, heavy rock, and modern industrial rap-metal, At the Drive-In provides music tailor-made for head-banging. Unlike such acts as Korn and Limp Bizkit, At the Drive-In isn't afraid to throw in the occasional semi-catchy melody, giving the uninitiated something on which to hang their hat. Other than that, however, there's little in the way of commercial concessions on RELATIONSHIP OF COMMAND. Rampaging guitar riffs, turbo-charged drumming, and super-emotive, lung-challenging vocals are the order of the day. The lyrics are often a bit elliptical, so its sometimes hard to tell exactly what the boys are going on about, but that can work to their advantage too, allowing the listeners to fill in the blanks. Slightly more refined than some of their contemporaries, but undeniably hard-hitting, At the Drive-In stands proudly at the center of circa-2000 heavy rock, and RELATIONSHIP OF COMMAND is their battle cry. In early 2005, look for the "Anthology" CD of greatest hits, exclusive unreleased tracks, rarities, covers, videos, interviews, and exclusive live footage.

Brighter Than Creation's Dark  >>

180-gram, 2-disc gatefold. The 2008 album from Drive-By Truckers is a 19-song 75+ minute Southern Gothic Rock n' Roll masterpiece. The album features songs from Patterson, Cooley and Shonna. The three guitar attack continues with John Neff. The album also features contributions from Spooner Oldham. Features the songs "The Righteous Path", "3 Dimes Down" and "Purgatory Line".