The Derek Trucks Band plays with a confidence that stems from years of roadwork and lives steeped in blues-rock history. On their sixth album, 2009's Already Free, the band kicks into Bob Dylan's "Down In the Flood" with a tough, southern-fried take that delivers an extra funk Dylan never would dare attempt. Trucks' wife Susan Tedeschi adds extra cheek to "Back Where I Started" and the band easily flows from R&B, blues to Middle Eastern vibes and jazz. Whether the band is practicing a soulful restraint for "Maybe This Time," with Doyle Bramhall II on guest vocals, exploring its gospel roots with "Sweet Inspiration," twisting up the urban blues of "Don't Miss Me," or turning up the guitar distortion for the crushing weight of "Get What You Deserve," the results are genuine and heartfelt, anchored in the greatest of Southern Rock traditions, hailing back from the field recordings of the ancient blues to the full-throttle band attack instituted by the Allman Brothers Band back in the ‘70s.