Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do (2010)

Have DBT really released 8 to 11 albums, depending on how you count? It's only shocking because I still remember my first listen and the moment I was initially blown away by their roaring southern rock chords. Although, admittedly, my interest has faded since Jason Isbell branched off on his own, nevertheless DBT still undoubtedly delivers some of the best alternative country / southern rock being manufactured today. Patterson Hood, the constant songwriter with the whiskey & cigarettes rasp, pulls more material from hard times, rough lives, scraping-by and indulging heavily, making for an album packed with hard-rocking recession anthems. Perhaps the heaviest hitting jam however is Mike Cooley's "Birthday Boy," about the depressingly unglamorous life of a call girl sweating her nights away for a measly income. I think it's fair to say that this is a political album at it's core, and in many cases you don't have to read very far into the lyrics to realize rural, southern America has been in a recession (in one form or another) since... maybe forever. "This Fucking Job" sums up the tone of album quite nicely by addressing the epically painful experience of being stuck in a dead-end, no-way-out job, but being thankful that at the very least you still have one. DBT have returned to rocking hard, with ripping chords, rugged vocals and real-talk lyrics. This is a solid effort that should make the DBT faithful, my self included, quite satisfied.

Jeremy's Summer Short List

1. The Weakerthans, Reconstruction Site. I really really love this album, why didn't somebody tell me about these guys sooner? So many great little lyrical nuggets tucked inside the corners of these tunes.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Rilo Kiley, The Execution of All Things. I bought this album a year ago and I think I've listened to either "The Good That Won't Come Out," "My Slumbering Heart" or "Spectacular Views" practically every day since. So good.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Seeing the Drive By Truckers without Patterson Hood at the 930 club in February. The rest of the band stepped it up, I think to make up for Hood's absence. Cooley and Shonna Tucker passed a bottle of JD back and forth, Cooley almost fell into the crowd from too much energy, and towards the end of the show they let a volunteer from the crowd come up and sing "Life in the Factory" (a Patterson song) while the band backed him up. My guess is, if that dude's making a list of his Top 5 moments of the year so far, this one's on it.
   
   
   
4. Walking into The Pug on H Street last weekend, 5:30 on a Saturday afternoon and there's only a couple of customers in there with the afternoon bartender. Friendly conversation ensues. Bartender asks me what kind of music I like, I say, "I don't know ... alt-country? Uncle Tupelo?" He finds 86 Uncle Tupelo songs on his iPod, puts those on random shuffle, finishes up his shift, *leaves* the iPod and takes off. Nighttime bartenders don't touch it and the Uncle Tupelo Shuffle plays for another two or three hours as the place fills up. Actually it was still playing when I left, so who knows, maybe that bar is now all Uncle Tupelo all the time? Awesome.
   
   
5. The alternate reality where I managed to get my hands on a single ticket to one of the three(!) shows The National sold out at the 9:30 club in May. I'm such an idiot.

Michael Dean Damron - Father's Day (2009)

I'd be surprised if fans of the Drive-By Truckers' Patterson Hood and Lucero's Ben Nichols aren't immediately drawn to Portland's similarly scratchy-voiced Michael Dean Damron and his barroom folk songs of heartbreak and regret. I also hear a lot of Steve Earle's simultaneously world-weary and rebellious attitude. He seems to aspire (and fit) Earle's definition of a "Hard Core Troubadour", a song referenced on "I'm A Bastard". Damron's soulful vocals on "Dead Days" mix acceptance and reflection and allow the electric guitar to provide a touch of optimism. Like early Bottle Rocket's albums, black humor runs throughout Father's Day, evident in songs like "Boy With A Car" and "SOS", which could be country punk if he picked up the pace. As usual, I tend to favor the electric guitar and harmonica driven tracks like "Tornado Song", but he does justice to the slower acoustic numbers as well, like a couple of covers of Townes Van Zandt and King Harvest.

Booker T. - Potato Hole (2009)

Booker T. & The MG's used to be my favorite band and STAX Records is still the baseline by which I measure all other soul music, past and present. So while I no longer listen to the MGs regularly, Potato Hole was still a must listen. Plus, it features Neil Young and the Drive-By Truckers. That's a pretty dynamite, if not quite intuitive, combination. Obviously, Young is a very different guitarist than Booker's old parter, Steve Cropper. However, the best songs are the ones that feature the fuzz and crunch of Young's guitar because it provides such a nice contrast to the B-3's clear and warbling rings. In particular, I like the gritty and soulful grind of "Pound It Out" and the lyrical organ on "Native New Yorker". The mellow second half of the album isn't quite as good as the more upbeat first half, and although it is isn't as awesome as it could be, it more than satisfies this fan.

Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit - Seven-Mile Island (2009)

Last year, while commenting on the Drive-By Truckers (DBT) album Brighter Than Creation's Dark I referenced Jason Isbell's departure from DBT by saying: "the post-Jason Isbell hangover is evident..." With the release of Seven-Mile Island, Isbell's second post-DBT album, I finally get to comment on the other side of the split. In a similar fashion and styling to Isbell's 1st post-DBT release, the stellar Sirens Of The Ditch (2007), Seven-Mile Island intermingles patient, mellifluous alt. country ballads with bluesy southern rock; not the rumbling, gritty southern rock of DBT, which is excellent in its own way. For the unfamiliar, Isbell has an extremely smooth and soulful voice, accented by a bit of twang and sadness—great for those southern rock tracks that speak of inner daemons and life's inherent struggles. The music quality is always solid, but what particularly draws me to Isbell's tracks are his impassioned vocals and thoughtful lyrics (Example: The Muscle Shoals R&B horn infused, "No Choice in the Matter). The album transitions like a collection of short stories, providing snippets of poverty, death, soldier-to-civilian reintegration, addressing substance abuse, and overcoming sadness & lost love, with instrumental digressions reflecting the disposition of the lyrics. This is a very good album, and although I feel DBT made better albums with Isbell, I am appreciative of the parting-of-ways because now we have Isbell's individualized style and approach to enjoy.

Suggestion: "Good," "Seven-Mile Island," "Soldiers Get Strange," and "Cigarettes And Wine" capture the spectrum of emotion and style pretty well.