Alabama-based Drive-By Truckers released Southern Rock Opera in 2001, a double album that loosely retells the (dramatic) story of the legendary southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. With three guitarists in its ranks, the band also showed to be well versed in that brooding southern rock style. Head trucker Patterson Hood also has a slightly tormented and dark singing voice (like a smoked Michael Stipe)
… with which he knows how to give a melancholic added value to the music. With their previous record The Dirty South, the group eventually broke through to a larger audience (in a revised line-up) and A Blessing And A Curse has everything it takes to consolidate this. It is especially clever how the group builds walls of guitars but never hides behind it. Depth and inspiration remain the main ingredients in the eleven songs. (MR)more
