Patterson Hood

Killers and Stars (New West)

A A A Comments By Rob Trucks Thursday, Jul 15 2004

Yes, Virginia, there were Drive-By Truckers albums before a bandwagon of critics hailed the Alabama natives' Southern Rock Operaand Decoration Day as the rebirth of the Confederate Guitar Army. The Truckers have, in fact, been around for eons, and the first officially released solo record by front man Patterson Hood harks back to those less celebratory days.

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Recorded alone in a dining room over two turbulent, just-divorced days in 2001, Hood's moody folk songs are slower and darker than the Truckers' current fist-pumping material. And while some might offer comparisons between Killers and Stars and another home recording, Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, Hood's self-imposed exile fosters a rage more aligned with a dormant Charlie Starkweather than Springsteen. Killers offers no invitation to meet on the boardwalk, no longed-for mansions, no "Reason to Believe." Witness the mournful moanings of an assassin, the thawing of a cryogenically chilled Walt Disney, Belinda Carlisle's abandonment of her punk resolve, empathy for the tragic actress Frances Farmer, the disoriented wanderings of a memory-deficient grandfather, and an inspired cover of Tom T. Hall's "Pay No Attention to Alice." They're all true representations of the Southern gothic spirit, as well as evidence of the power that can be derived from loss.