Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark

In what was to be a slow year for the Drive-By Truckers, they sure found ways of keeping busy in 2007. After band member Jason Isbell left the band in early spring to pursue a solo career the Truckers shortly departed on a tour which would carry them thru the fall playing more of an acoustic show then anyone who has seen them live before would expect. Throughout the dubbed "Dirt Underneath Tour" new songs would be debuted and worked out. These songs, when treated to some studio polish, would become the Truckers eighth album, Brighter Than Creation's Dark. Oh yeah they also recorded an album with Betty Levatte which has been nominated for a Grammy, that's all in an "off-year."

At 19 songs and 75 minutes one would assume that Brigher would be bloated with a couple filler songs but every track here is a winner and makes sense as a part of the whole album. This is a true album, not a collection of songs. Patteron Hood himself compared the album and it's length to the Rolling Stones' classic Exile on Main Street thusly: "Exile on Main Street has lots of filler, yet I would hate to part with a single note of it." While musical styles can vary greatly from song to song, from solid gold country to rock to soul, Brighter has a cohesiveness and flow few bands today even attempt and fewer still successfully accomplish.

Brighter Than Creation's Dark is a portrait of a good band becoming great. Listening to it the first time gives you the feeling of what it must have been like to listen to one of classic rock 'n' roll albums, Exile, Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti or The Band's Music From Big Pink or the like for the first time back in the late 60's/early 70's and just knowing that this will be an album that will be with you for the rest of your life.

+++HIGHLY RECOMENDED+++

Standout Track: The Righteous Path

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Brighter Than Creaton's Dark (stream)