Southern rock’n’roll is a tricky genre to digest. There are only so many loud guitars and only so many ways to beat the same drum before the music becomes redundant. So, for a band to add life to Southern rock, it needs to add new instruments or come up with striking melodies to separate each song from the one before it.
Unfortunately, underground Georgia rockers Drive-By Truckers haven’t yet figured that out. Their latest album, A Blessing and A Curse, is mostly full of run-of-the-mill Southern rock, but it has a few redeeming qualities. The song-writing is strong, and when the Truckers decide to throw in a melody or tone down the guitars, they actually crank out a few songs that make the album worth the listen.
The album’s first highlight comes a few minutes into the album with “Easy On Yourself,” an old-school jam that carries a singable melody and pounding beat that shows the Beatles’ influence on the Truckers. Lead singer Patterson Hood sings about the troubles and life in a small Southern town that suck you in and take hold: “I can’t blame you but it’s a shame/You can’t cover your ass sometimes./It’s that kind of town and you’re so far down you can’t get up.”
“Aftermath USA” follows with a scorching guitar riff and Hood’s scathing tenor that gives the lyrics about waking up from a wild night of partying new life and the feeling that he’s singing the song that very morning: “There were cigarettes in the ashtrays/They weren’t your menthol lights/There were beer bottles in the kitchen/And broken glass on the floor/Someone must have slipped me something/Passed out a couple days before.”
The Truckers slow it down for a sad ode to a young girl who lost her life early in “Little Bonnie”: “They put her in the family garden/Said you could hear his heart breaking miles away/But they say Bonnie’s crystal eyes put the stars to shame/Maybe heaven needed Bonnie’s face.” The guitars swoon, and the eerie melody penetrates the lyrics to give a haunting beauty to Bonnie’s death.
The even slower “Space City” is a trancelike, guitar-strum folk song about a man’s wife waiting for him in heaven: “And somewhere beyond that big white light is where my heart is gone/And somewhere she’s wondering what’s taking me so long.” The simplicity of the single guitar makes the song much more interesting than any earth-shattering riffs ever could.
And on the title track, rolling drums and soulful guitars fill the song for the first minute-and-a-half until Hood joins in with lyrics about how bittersweet love can be: “A man’s got to think it all through/Got to do what you got to do/It’s itching to conquer and take you/Itching to make a mistake out of you.” Frankly, the track’s music is so good, the lyrics could’ve been left out, and the song would’ve been even better.
The rest of the album consists of typical Drive-By Truckers fare that casual and die-hard fans will surely enjoy. But to the rest of the world, it’s recycled Southern rock would do good to take a little help from the originality department. It’s not that the songs aren’t good by themselves, but when there’s so little to work with, how are they supposed to stand out if they don’t have stark contrasting qualities? However, there is no excuse for the annoying “A World of Hurt,” a song that could have been slightly enjoyable if not for Hood talking his lyrics, which gives the song an unbearable quality that most couldn’t sit through unless you’re an avid Truckers fan.
The album as a whole pushes the Drive-By Truckers ahead in popularity and will surely gain many new fans with its traditional Southern rock blended with new-school melodies. But after this album, the Truckers need to bring in new sounds to revitalize Southern rock and give it enough personality for the mainstream to accept it beyond its hillbilly roots.