Drive-By Truckers – Decoration Day [2xLP] – New LP

"For a musician, the trouble with making your best album is you have to figure out a way to top it next time out, and that isn't always easy. On their first three albums, the Drive-By Truckers were from the harder-and-faster end of the alt-country spectrum who blended Replacements-esque snot and slop with a Lynyrd Skynyrd-influenced shot of twangy hard rock. Decoration Day by Drive-By TruckersDecoration Day is every bit as ambitious a work as Southern Rock Opera, broadening the band's sound and style while staying true to their ideals and approach. If you're looking for tough, Southern-styled rock, "Marry Me," "Careless," and "Do It Yourself" offer it up in spades (and "Hell No, I Ain't Happy" sounds like it could be a new generation's "Take This Job and Shove It"); but the quiet bad-seed ballads "The Deeper In" and "Heathens" and the tragic love songs "My Sweet Anette" and "Sounds Better in the Song" all display a subtlety and restraint one might not have expected from this band, whil