Listening Station: Drive-By Truckers, Ministry, Regina Spektor, Spiderbait, Uberzone

Drive-By Truckers

The Dirty South

The Drive-By Truckers are a Southern rock 'n' roll band, for sure, but they are more than that. They are cultural historians of their region, sociologists examining what makes Southerners tick and what makes them different from, oh, Northerners or Westerners. Even with their unabashed drawls and ain'ts, they're a lot smarter than the average rock band, which probably works against them in terms of getting a song on the radio and receiving the widespread acclaim they deserve.

The Truckers' new album, The Dirty South, is an entrancing exploration of the not-so-distant past by songwriters Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell. They are nostalgic for their youth when the South was more like the world of Faulkner and "The Dukes of Hazzard" than its modern incarnation as a carbon copy of everywhere else in the country. Hood explains in the liner notes: "The South is a geographically beautiful region. Big rivers cut through red clay hills, green grass and shady trees. At least it was that way before they strip-mined and strip-malled us into bland suburbia and conformist complacency."

Two of the best songs tell deceptively simple stories. "Tornadoes" is about a twister that rolls through a small town, flattening buildings and sweeping people away. "Sirens were blowing, clouds spat rain/ And as the thing came through, it sounded like a train." In "The Sands of Iwo Jima," a World War II vet (presumably Hood's grandfather) shares some of his experiences with his young grandson. Watching the John Wayne movie together, the grandson asks if it's a realistic portrayal: "He said, `I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima.'"

The story behind the movie Walking Tall is the subject of two songs, "The Boys from Alabama" and "The Buford Stick." Hood says in the liner notes that when he was a kid, he and his friends were fascinated by the tale of Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser and his big hickory stick. But upon further reflection, he provides a more nuanced perspective on the legend. "Puttin' People on the Moon" is a withering critique of presidential policies from Reagan to George W. Bush that have sent good factory jobs overseas in favor of low-paying service work. It relates the story of a man who resorts to running numbers and selling drugs to pay the bills, only to have his wife get cancer and die when he doesn't have insurance to pay for chemotherapy. Dramatic stuff--perhaps too dramatic if I wasn't pretty sure the song is based on someone Hood knows. On a brighter note, "Carl Perkins' Cadillac" is an ode to legendary Memphis record producer Sam Phillips and his 1950s singing stars: Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.

The Drive-By Truckers are the real deal: rock that matters, in the vein of Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams. There's no surface, only the meat and gristle of life beneath.--Geoff Schumacher

Spiderbait

Tonight Alright

Until recently, it seemed like all we had to thank Australia for was a pair of leather-skinned geezers who wrestled reptiles and belched annoying Outback-isms like "g'day" and "crikey." Given that bleak cultural panorama, who would have thought salvation was only a bar chord away? Meet the shaggy-haired harbingers of Australia's rock 'n' roll invasion: Jet, the Vines, the Living End, Bumblebeez 81, You Am I and Spiderbait.

Perhaps the least renowned of the bunch, Spiderbait may in fact be the most promising. Defying the typically myopic sound of garage rock, Tonight Alright has a bit of everything: big guitars, quirky melodies, slick rhythms and a one-two punch of male-female vocals delivered by drummer Mark Maher and bassist Janet English. Imagine a stripped-down version of the Pixies doing its damnedest to ape Led Zeppelin, and you'll be that much closer to a sound that ranges from crackling pop ("Fucken Awesome") to drowsy indie-rock ("Tonite") to stomp-along electric blues ("Black Betty"). Witness: "The Dog" is 98 percent New Bomb Turks, while "In This City" nicks the opening chord of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." Any band with that kind of range has to be a ripper, wouldn't you say, mate? (My bad.)--Newt Briggs

Ministry

Houses of the Molé

Al Jourgensen kids about only really stepping up when a Bush is in office, but where's the joke? Honest-to-God theocratic bullying clearly gooses him to a fury absent from records of the opiated (literally, for Al) '90s. Along came W., and if last year's Animositisomina was a rude reawakening, Houses of the Molé is the heavy artillery we'd expect. Soak up the industrial-size outrage, but don't miss a rather un-Ministry arc here: There's an early scare from "Waiting," feeble and hacked dead with the dullest of axe solos, but from that trench comes a valiant (if a little bewildering) regrouping as the hooks come out and new guitarist Mike Scaccia waxes all zeppy Navarro next to AJ channeling Perry Farrell ("Wrong"). Where the hell are we? Back home, ultimately, with the invasive comforts of Jourgensen's signature vox-aquatica as "Worm" looms up for the finale--a harmonica-sweetened groove de malaise that shrugs the way an album-closer should. Classy comeback, Al.--Dave Surratt

Regina Spektor

Soviet Kitsch

Despite its title, Russian émigré Regina Spektor's third album is neither cheap nor tasteless. Soviet Kitsch sounds like Fiona Apple, except the lyrics are peppered with a better sense of humor and a slight Eastern European accent. Last heard being drowned out by Julian Casablancas on a Strokes B-side duet, Spektor is much better left alone in these slight settings of piano and little other accompaniment, where her robust voice is equally comfortable commanding or simply flitting around melody. She can be simultaneously hilarious and sad, such as on "Ode to Divorce," where she imagines being eaten by her lover. Literally. "I'm inside your mouth now/ Behind your tonsils/ Peeking over your molars." Often beginning with a conventional ballad structure, Spektor confidently enjoys chewing up the form beyond recognition and then shifting back for a tidy, tragic ending. She painfully takes stock of what's left of a doomed love affair on "The Flowers," before swinging into what sounds like "Hava Nagila." Pianos creep and trill. Confessions are made, then disavowed. And by the end of this elegantly sophisticated song cycle, a young woman has announced herself as an extremely promising songwriter.--Jim Bialek

Uberzone

Y4K

Breakbeat--like every other electronic subgenre--seems stuck in its own nostalgia, and it doesn't help that its old-school-evoking rhythms serve as the foundation for so many mainstream styles (hip hop, modern rock, electroclash). SoCal breaks figurehead Q--who produces and tours under the name Uberzone--has his go at the label Distinctive Breaks' mix series, Y4K, which reflects some of this classicist attitude from the get-go (the leadoff track is a collaboration between him and pioneer Afrika Bambaataa). Q balances this approach with a broad variety of breaks and moods that engages at nearly every turn. His own "Drunken Monkey" begins a mid-album run of inspired tracks, peaking with the propulsive club mainstay "Turn It Up" by Christian J and Meat Katie, and the Sasha-esque "Take Me Back" courtesy of BLIM. The mix reverts back to retro mode from there--a shame considering the futuristic implications of the title. But his survey of the genre is nothing if thorough.--Mike Prevatt