[09.02] The Drive-By Truckers are a hard-working quintet based in Athens, GA. Their primary songwriters, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, are Alabama natives and 30-something veterans of punk bands, but they grew up listening to '70s hard rock, that's for sure. Southern Rock Opera is their third recording. It was originally released a year ago on a tiny label; now it's been re-released on Lost Highway—luckily for you.

Uh, did I say rock opera? It summons visions of elves, dragons and blind pinball players. None of which you'll find on this recording. It's more akin to a collection of short stories about southerners of various stripes—14-year-old rock fans on acid at a Blue Oyster Cult concert, former glue sniffers turned Jack Daniel's drinking yuppies, George Wallace in hell, and a four-song cycle about the rise and fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Not only that, it's two discs long, it rocks, it's funny, sloppy and moving. I can't stop listening to it. Spiritually, I give it four sporks, but due to a couple of flat songs and the occasional uninspired lyric I have to knock it down to three.

At their best, Hood and Cooley create portraits of characters in just a few words. "Dropped Acid at a Blue Oyster Cult concert/14 years old/Thought them lasers were a spider chasing me." ("Let There Be Rock"); "We've been this close to death before/But we just were too drunk to know it/I guess the price of being sober is to be scared out of your mind." ("Shut Up and Get on the Plane") Hood sings in a high tuneful rasp that reminds me of Steve Earle; Cooley has a more resonant voice that at times dips into Johnny Cash territory; sometime vocalist Rob Malone sounds a little like Gregg Allman. This range of southern voices is accompanied by three, count 'em, three lead guitars. If it makes you think of Skynyrd, it should. They are the musical spirit behind this project, both its strength and weakness. If you shudder at the memory of Skynyrd listening yahoos beating you up in high school, the Truckers are right there with you. They were tormented by the same kids and admit that it took them until adulthood to appreciate the "Skynyrd thing in all of its misunderstood glory."

The grander vision of Southern Rock Opera is to examine what Hood calls "the duality of the Southern thing." How is it that a one-time politically (relatively) progressive judge like George Wallace remakes himself as a staunch segregationist and then remakes himself again in his late political career as a (relatively) liberal Democrat who gets 90% of the African-American vote in Alabama? And, on a smaller scale, how is it that a Neil Young fan such as Ronnie Van Zandt writes "Sweet Home Alabama" (I still love this song, people!) with the words directed at Young, "Southern Man don't need him around anyhow," and Young writes "Powderfinger" for Skynyrd to record (or so the legend goes)?

However, Southern Rock Opera loses its way a bit when it tries to answer all of these questions. As I said, it works better as a collection of short stories than as a novel. Still, it rocks like nobody's business, combining buzz-saw punk energy with a '70s southern rock flavor. It's a tribute to a time when bands made hard rock records, and that was nothing to be ashamed of. It's the record for the thinking Thin Lizzy, Bon Scott-era AC/DC, Skynyrd fan. Could this be you? —Ken