HIGH BIAS -- lead review

THE DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
Southern Rock Opera
(Drive-By Truckers)
It's hard to explain what it means to be Southern. To far too many outsiders—and that means pretty much anybody born west of Texas and north of Virginia—the South has never been anything but a cauldron simmering with ignorance, violence and overt racism. An awful lot of Southern folks fight a constant uphill battle for redemption for an ugly past most of them are too young to remember clearly. But this fight goes unnoticed by the world at large. It's much easier to think of the South as a place of flag-waving rebels, backwoods rednecks and bloodthirsty KKK members than as a part of the contemporary United States.

As a result, like other regions of the U.S.—from Hollywood to New York to Boston—the South is known more for its stereotypes than for its people. Two of the biggest icons that represent the South for most people are the late Alabama governor George Wallace and Southern rock epitomizer Lynyrd Skynyrd. Both stood up with pride for their Southern roots, both were vastly misunderstood and both passed into history stamped with labels they would have preferred not stick. Wallace was less a flaming racist than a pandering politico who would do anything for votes; he spent the last 15 years of his life trying in vain to make up for the harm done by his earlier ambition. Contrary to popular belief, Skynyrd wasn't a band of stereotypical rednecks out to jump-start a revival of the Confederacy. It was a group of men fiercely proud of the heritage with which they grew up and determined to show the world, through classic rock guitar riffs and an unrecognized sense of humor, that as much good came from the South as bad.

Both icons failed in their missions. Both became symbols for a racist South that is slowly fading from existence. Both passed into legend for the wrong reasons. Both became perfect examples of what Drive-By Truckers leader Patterson Hood calls "the duality of the Southern thing." Hood and his bandmates became so fascinated with this dichotomy and how it related to their own Southern heritage that they wrote an album about it. The aptly titled Southern Rock Opera purports to tell the story of Betamax Guillotine, an Alabama rock band named for the way Ronnie Van Zant supposedly died*, but the loose storyline is really just an excuse for the Truckers to put the South under a microscope. The Georgia-based, Alabama-bred quintet examines Wallace, the Muscle Shoals Sound, the Alabama obsession with football, the history of Lynyrd Skynyrd and their own childhoods with wry humor and a literary bent more Larry Brown than William Faulkner. They ask the question, "What does it mean to come from the South?"

The double album starts with "Days of Graduation," in which our unnamed hero grows up in a hurry after his best high school pal and his girlfriend are killed in a drunk driving accident. With a tragic beginning to get us in the mood, the band is off into "Ronnie and Neil," which explains the misunderstood relationship between the composers of "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Southern Man." Hood admonishes "Rock stars today ain't half as real" with a powerhouse rock riff of which the song's subjects would have been proud. In fact, high volume power chordage is the order of the day here. For most of the album, the band leaves its country leanings in the cases for a more straightforward, three-guitar rock 'n' roll sound that nods to the classic Skynyrd triad without copping any licks from it—no "Free Bird" epics here.

Hood's whiskey-and-cigarettes rasp contrasts nicely with guitarist Mike Cooley's down-home baritone (third guitarist Rob Malone's white-boy soul shout is an acquired taste), letting the story be told from many different points of view. There's the grumpy neighbor ("Guitar Man Upstairs"), the teenage rocker ("Let There Be Rock") and, of course, the devil, laying out the red carpet for a newly-arrived "Wallace." The album-ending trilogy details the final, fateful Skynyrd plane ride, from badgering Cassie Gaines to "Shut Up and Get on the Plane" to the doomed route "Greenville to Baton Rouge" and the final moments of "Angels and Fuselage." With nearly ambient Southern rock chords and the line "I'm scared shitless of what's coming next," the Skynyrd story comes to an end for the second time.

The two songs that form the heart of the record appear on disk 1. "The Three Great Alabama Icons" discusses the importance of George Wallace, college football coach Bear Bryant and Ronnie Van Zant to the state, its people and the songwriter, in unflinching terms and with an unblinking eye. "The Southern Thing" is even more pointed, as Hood mixes the tough posturing that's a building block of rock 'n' roll in any genre with an earnest desire to make the listener comprehend, once again, the duality of the Southern thing. "Proud of the glory/Stare down the shame"—that simple phrase sums up both the record and the quest for understanding. That it's growled over a classic arena rock guitar lick only adds to the song's sincerity.

Does Southern Rock Opera answer the central question of what it means to be Southern? Perhaps in the band's mind it does, though outsiders might not get it. The Drive-By Truckers make no bones about where they come from, but what it means to them is something they can't quite articulate. But they'll burn out their amplifiers trying. Michael Toland

For fans of: Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Bottle Rockets, Slobberbone

* According to legend, Van Zant was killed before the plane ever hit the ground—by a videotape machine that fell and slammed into the back of his head. Is it true? Who knows? It's probably apocryphal, but it's an interesting fantasy in the same way as the urban legend of the teenage couple whose overturned car was still playing "Free Bird" when the authorities came to haul away the wreckage. Notes Hood: "Y'know, it's a very long song." (back)