The Fine Print (A Collection of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008)

iTunes Review

Southern rockers Drive-By Truckers are clearly one of America’s finest rock n’ roll bands: even their outtakes are worth hearing. Patterson Hood may be the main voice — both as a performer and a writer — but it’s the tough ensemble playing, the harmonies, the sweeping pedal steel, the guitars interlocking and pulling away that make the group so damn solid. Four covers further explain and expand the band’s attack. Tom Petty’s “Rebels,” Warren Zevon’s “Play It All Night Long,” “Tom T. Hall’s “Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill a Chicken)” and even Bob Dylan’s anthem “Like a Rolling Stone” all are given the indelible Drive-By Truckers stamp. It’s in these covers that DBT get to be a free and easy rock band and loosen up without falling apart — as they do on the Christmas tune, “Mrs. Claus Kimono,” where the goof overtakes the effort. The alternate take of “Goode’s Field Road” is an insight into the band’s working ways, as it’s not near the version that appears on Brighter Than Creation’s Dark. Contributions from Mike Cooley and the departed Jason Isbell (the seven-minute “TVA”) round things out nicely.