Bands with three great songwriters are few and far between. Bands that release three great albums in a row are even more rare. “The Dirty South” marks yet another classic in the Drive-By Truckers canon, this one a ghost story of sorts rife with familiar proper names drawn from the darker side of the working-class South. From vigilante cops (“The Buford Stick”) to down-and-out life (“Puttin’ People on the Moon”) to anthems linked with dead icons (“The Day John Henry Died,” “Danko/Manuel,” “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”), this album is the DBTs at their most diverse, rousing, melodic, moving and focused. And for those not yet converted to the band’s particular brand of literate Southern rock: Resistance is futile.
Take away: Southern postcards
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Kris Karnopp ([email protected])