Southern Rock Heroes Just Keep On Truckin'

Jason Isbell's departure certainly didn't send the Drive-By Truckers into retreat. On the contrary, "Brighter Than Creation's Dark" is almost as ambitious, if nowhere near as audacious, as "Southern Rock Opera," the last album before Isbell joined.

It's dark, though, even by the Truckers' gritty standard. "Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife," about a murdered family of four, opens the album with an emotional gut-punch, the incident's ugliness pooling underneath the song's mournful melody.

The rest isn't quite that bleak, but the light still is pretty dim. Most songs take place in the small hours. It's music for last call, paced floors, overflowing ashtrays and long drives home.

It's also the least rocking Truckers album, with midtempos dominating and John Neff's steel guitar and guest Spooner Oldham's keyboards to the fore. (Fortunately, with 19 tracks, there's room for several exceptions.)

Bassist Shonna Tucker steps up with three songs of her own. They may be more promising than fully formed, but she gets off one of the best couplets on the disc: If Jesus walked on water, where'd he get those shoes? It just keeps getting harder to lose these walkin' blues (from "The Purgatory Line").

Patterson Hood has a couple of misses - "The Righteous Path" sounds like a song he's written many times before, and "Daddy Needs a Drink" nearly sinks in self-pity - but some bull's-eyes as well. "The Opening Act" is a traveling musician's tune with humor and compassion, while "That Man I Shot" and "The Homefront" both take on the Iraq war from different but powerful perspectives.

Mike Cooley doesn't quite dominate the album, but his songs are the most consistently interesting (and rocking). The last 20 years of rock get a well-needed lacerating on "Self Destructive Zones." "Checkout Time in Vegas" transplants the Dixie thugs of "Cottonseed" (from "The Dirty South") out west. "Lisa's Birthday" is straight country, funny and sad.

It might lack the immediate impact of other Truckers albums, but "Darkness" shows the band transitioning with real grace.

Download this: "Self Destructive Zones"