The Dirty South
by Drive-By Truckers

From zdwyatt TOP 100 COMMENTER 10/18/2013 19:24 | #88784 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This is the third of a three-album peak for this band, from a time when they had three excellent songwriters all hitting their marks. The real standout on this one is Jason Isbell, who contributed three instant classics in "Danko/Manuel," "Never Gonna Change," and "Goddamn Lonely Love."

From cestuneblague TOP 100 COMMENTER 10/10/2016 06:34 | #176638 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Continues where Decoration Day left off, taking their music into a slighty more high-concept, dirty-southern gothic direction. While it lacks some of the brutal, blunt impact of their previous album, it's still very strong, with it's great trio of songwriters continuing to work wonders in their shawdow-y, conflicted view of the modern south. All deserve credit but Isbell's compositions still stand out the most- while still good, I don't think the band's music was ever quite as potent and immediate after he left.

From buzzdainer TOP 100 COMMENTER 02/07/2016 17:04 | #158969 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

The high-water mark for great Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers, who understood something even Lynyrd Skynyrd never did: what principal Songwriter Patterson Hood has called "the duality of the Southern thing." I'm not even sure that the best track here is one of Hood's, though; that honor has to go to Jason Isbell's brutal ballad "Goddamn Lonely Love."

What a collection of amazing songs. This is a real step up in quality from the group with the song writing not only being more intelligent but also more enjoyable to listen too. There are so many well written songs on the album but the standouts are Never Gonna Change and Goddamn Lonely Love which are fantastic. They are also probably the two best songs on the album. Every other song is good or great though making this an extremely consistent and cohesive record. Some may argue the run time is a bit excessive but I do think it is justified with how much quality is packed into the record. I don't think any song is filler or should be cut. The vocal performance is great and is very diverse compared to other releases. Instrumentally I think this is where the group peaked with every instrument being played in unison and everything just matches up on this record. Overall, I do think this is the groups best record and is an extremely under rated piece of music.

Country is not exactly my thing, but this is an album that really stands out - though you could argue this is more rock than country. The only complaint would be that it is too long, I can imagine this being so much better by removing tracks 9 to 13 - ok, maybe too much but you get my point.