When you hear the term “Dirty South,” chances are you won’t think of John Henry, Carl Perkins or even Elvis. To the Drive-By Truckers, however, these types of figures are exactly what the “Dirty” South, a region thick with legend and bigger than life heroes, is all about.

Based in Georgia, the band has rarely strayed north of the Mason-Dixon Line in the five albums they’ve released since forming in 1996. Dirty South keeps the setting the same but changes the focus, panning out to cover not only the drinking problems and strong familial bonds, but also the heroes who populate the vast pantheon of southern legend. The goal of the album is to deconstruct these mythical figures, peeling off the bronze and concentrating on the human beings who formed these legends.

In some cases, as with “The Day John Henry Died,” turning a legend from myth to man actually increases the power of his story. The hammer fall of such verses as “John Henry was a steel driving master / but John Henry was a bastard just the same / and an engine never thinks about his daddy / and an engine never yearns to write his name,” not only cracks the edifice of one of America’s greatest folk heroes, but also strikes hard at the underlying theme of the album.

This theme is equally strong in “Putting People On The Moon,” in which the narrator struggles to find work as the Tenessee Valley Authority shuts down and NASA sets up in town, and then watches as his wife dies of cancer because he can’t afford to pay for chemotherapy. Even with all the tragedy displayed, lyricists Patterson Hood, Jason Isbel and Mike Cooley avoid sentimentalizing and set forth the theme clearly and poignantly; people just want to be left alone to work hard enough to support their families, even if that means selling drugs or running moonshine.

The only downside to Dirty South is much of the guitar work, which is predictably rote and gives the impression that southern rock hasn’t changed a bit in the past thirty years. While bands such as My Morning Jacket have been able to avoid this routine by incorporating inventive melodies and soaring crescendos, the Drive-By Truckers are able to get by on the strength of their lyrics, which draw attention away from the inevitable solos of the band’s three guitar attack.

-Jesse Cataldo