Southern-Rock Gods Drive-By Truckers new album A Blessing and A Curse couldn't be more aptly titled. Considering that a new album from Hood and company is obviously a blessing, but also a curse, since trying to make a follow-up to their 2004 masterwork The Dirty South (#1 that year on my list) would be doomed to utter impossibility.

Opting not to attempt another concept album about the South for the fourth consecutive time, A Blessing finds the three-headed singer/guitarist attack of Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell just laying down good ol' fashioned Rock N' Roll set pieces that bring to mind The Replacements and The Stones as much as they do Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Hood's tale of broken vases and broken hearts on "Feb 14," the heavy-sounding Replacements-like "Wednesday" and Keith Richards inspired guitar riffs on "Aftermath USA" are definitely his three best here. Even though Cooley is sorely underused on A Blessing (he only sings on two tracks), his rollicking Country-Rocker "Gravity's Gone" is probably the best of the entire lot. Isbell is the only one here though that doesn't really contribute a track worthy of repeated listens. "Easy On Yourself" and "Daylight" are decent songs, but they just don't measure up to his past works. While A Blessing and A Curse is a very good album to be sure, it's the first they've released in a long time that won't be regarded as essential.