
With songs like "Six Pack of Beer", "The Grand Ole Opry (Ain't So Grand Anymore)", "P.F.F.", Hank takes the listener on a wild midnight ride (with the headlights off) of drugs, sex, booze, fighting, and more drugs, all while still championing his grand-daddy's longstanding blacklisting at the Opry. You have to hear it to believe, and probably see it in person to understand it.

Johnson sounds like Waylon if Waylon was to come out today. He sings about substance abuse like Cash might do today. He tells tales of rowdiness like Paycheck use to and would still be doing today if he was still around. And he sings stories of love and loves lost like Possum is still singing to this day...all with a sound of his own...
See previous Jamey Johnson posts here.

See previous Whigs posts here.

Seriously, pick up this album ASAP if you haven't heard it or do not already have it.
See previous Justin Townes Earle posts here.
+++++

So I missed out on this record the first time through: Justin Vernon and company originally released this own their own in 2007. It was so good that Jagjaguwar picked it up and re-released it with bigger distribution and promotion behind it in 2008. And we are all glad that they did, for we might not have heard this somberly gorgeous and haunting piece of work. This album is on most everyone's top of/best of lists of '08, and for good reason.
I don't think that I have ever heard an album that is so mournful, or and makes me feel anxious and alone as this album does. Someone somewhere said that this album track by track isn't very good, excluding "Skinny Love", but as a whole, this album ebbs and flows up and down and weaves through Vernon's sorrow-tinged falsetto, sang so softly that he is barely audible at times, and then crashing back in as his heart (and mine) breaks with every word.
See previous Bon Iver posts here.
+++++
#1. Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark - New West Records
The Truckers' latest release did not impress me upon first listen. Or fifth listen. Or even tenth listen. I don't know what it was that finally grabbed ahold of me. I was honestly disappointed with the album when it came out. It was too laid back. Too pretty. Too much of a continuous piece of art that moved in and out of emotions and stories and humor and peril and paranoia. I guess it was too perfect for me.
BTCD is not the big rock album of the Truckers' past. It's not even a half rock/half soft album that has become one of their trademarks. This album is a stark contrast from 2006's A Blessing and a Curse, and rivals 2003's Decoration Day as the DBT's most beautiful album, and is absolutely a work of perfected art, with many mini-masterpieces within. Songs like "The Opening Act", "The Home Front" and "Monument Valley" showcase Patterson Hood's softer side and introspective lyrics, while "That Man I Shot" and "You and Your Crystal Meth" are the only really loud and raucous tunes on the album.
BTCD also debuts bassist Shonna Tucker's first lead vocal outings with three of her own tunes, which hold their own on the album which has historically been a "boy's club" as far as singing and songwriting goes. Check out "The Purgatory Line" to experience Ms. Tucker at her best.
Of course there are the Cooley songs, which never let the listener down. Cooley has really stepped up and written his songs from the inside out while looking back in on the soul of the songs' subjects. "Checkout Time in Vegas" is just a beautiful song. Patterson claims that "A Ghost to Most" is Cooley's best song that he's written. Patterson would know as they have been playing and writing together since the Eighties.
All in all, this record is a definite creeper. But it's a different kind of creeper than one that just has to grow on you as a listener. This one is a creeper because it is so deep, and so beautiful, that it just cannot be consumed without multiple listens. Five, ten, twenty times? Keep going. I am still listening to it, and hearing parts I have never heard before, and picking up things that one will not hear upon the initial listenings. If you tried this album, and gave up on it, try it again. Maybe a few more times. I'm glad I did. BTCD really deserves it, as this may be the best put together album of the Drive-By Truckers ten year career. It certainly is the most beautiful record that they have done.
I can't wait for what's next, because the Truckers just keep getting better and better, and continue to break new ground and push the boundaries to the next limit and more. Here's to 2009!
See previous DBT posts here.
See what you missed with albums #13-7 here.
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