Home Read Classic Album Review: The V-Roys | Are You Through Yet?

Classic Album Review: The V-Roys | Are You Through Yet?

The world's best bar band call it quits with this outstanding live album.

This album came out two decades ago. Here’s what I had to say about it back then (with some minor editing):

 


For Tennessee’s V-Roys, the only answer to the question posed in their album title is, sadly, yes.

The roots-rock quartet and frequent tourmates of Steve Earle have packed it in, leaving behind this live album (released on Earle’s label) as a parting gift for the faithful. And a swell memento it is. Recorded before an enthusiastic home-state club crowd, this 17-tracker captures the band at their best, ripping through a set of twangy, gritty, three-chord barnburners like Cry and I Want My Money, interspersed with the jangly melancholy of ballads like Mary and Out of This World. They just mighta been the world’s best bar band — except your typical bar band doesn’t kick off its set with the sprawling grandeur of Neil Young’s Motion Pictures or pepper their show with tunes by The Replacements (I.O.U.) and The La’s (There She Goes). A fine disc, through and through. No question.