Drive-by Truckers | Decoration Day | CD

Drive-By Truckers: Mike Cooley, Earl Hicks, Patterson Hood, Jason Isbell, Brad Morgan.
Additional personnel: David Barbe, Clay Leverett, John Neff, Spooner Oldham, Scott Danborn, Bob Spires, Shanna Tucker.
Recorded at Chase Park Transduction Studios, Athens, Georgia.
Personnel: Jason Isbell, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley (vocals, guitar); David Barbe (guitar, Wurlitzer organ, keyboards); Scott Danborn (fiddle); Spooner Oldham (Wurlitzer organ); Brad Morgan (drums).
Audio Mixer: David Barbe.
Recording information: Chase Park Transduction, Athens, GA (2002).
Photographer: David Wilds.
Though SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA is probably the Drive-By Truckers' most ambitious album, its follow-up, DECORATION DAY, is where the band really came into its own. The template they established on their first three albums--bluesy Southern rock with a raw punk edge and a contemporary alt-country tinge--is at it's most concise and visceral here, not only musically, but lyrically as well. In a manner not dissimilar to THE RIVER-era Springsteen, DECORATION DAY articulates working-class dilemmas with a winning mixture of thoughtfulness and rock 'n' roll abandon, understanding that the means of expressing those dilemmas is often indistinguishable from the way out of them.

• Format: CD
• Genre: Pop
• Released: 6/13/2003
• Released: 06/13/2003