Review Summary: An assured and powerful statement from one of America’s greatest
The Drive-By Truckers are well-accustomed to being misunderstood. Their very name conjures up certain less-than-appealing stereotypes. For two decades now, the Athens, Georgia collective fronted by master singer-songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley has made a career out of subverting Southern stereotypes while at the same time embracing their home in all of its flawed complexity. Despite what many of their followers will tell you,
American Band, the band’s eleventh studio album, continues in this tradition, and stands as one of the band’s greatest achievements yet. On top of that, it is also their most vital and timely release to date.
While politics have long been an aspect of the DBTs’ music,
American Band is their first release explicitly marketed as political. The album’s announcement and the joint release of lead single “Surrender Under Protest”, a driving rocker in which Cooley deconstructs the narratives of Civil War apologists, were met with polarized opinions. On the one hand, many of the band’s fans praised them for taking such a relevant direction. Conversely, some of the conservative elements in the band’s fanbase decried them for having sold out to Hillary Clinton and the left and for encouraging a one-sided view of politics, while others said the band should stick to what they’re good at and keep politics out of the picture completely.
But in spite of the superficial differences between
American Band and the rest of the band’s discography, the music here presents the Drive-By Truckers playing to their strengths. The album is split between uptempo Southern rockers and more contemplative alt-country tunes. The tracklisting, much like 2014’s
English Oceans, takes the form of a call-and-response between Hood and Cooley. Cooley starts things out with “Ramon Casiano”, and once he delivers the opening line after a series of resplendent guitar chords and the entering of a sturdy drum beat, the listener knows they’re in for an album of serious statements: “It all started with the border / And that’s still where it is today / Someone killed Ramon Casiano / And the killer got away”. Hood follows this up with the blistering “Darkened Fags on the Cusp of Dawn”, in which he decries the flying of the Confederate Flag. The track rivals songs such as “Careless” and “Lookout Mountain” from their back catalogue in terms of pure dark intensity. A stark shift in tone comes a couple songs later with Hood’s stunning “Guns of Umpqua”, one of the album’s best songs. Told from the point of view of a man killed in the October 2015 shooting at Umpqua Community College, the song reaches intense emotional heights by contrasting the horror of the speaker’s current situation (“we’re moving chairs in some panic mode to barricade the doors / As my heart rate surges on adrenaline nerves”) with both the scenic imagery of his hiking trip the past weekend (“Watched the sun slip down behind a mountain stream in these great cascades / Saw a mighty hawk swoop down upon a stream to devour its prey”) and the heartbreaking normalcy of the day (“It’s a morning like so many others with breakfast and birthdays”). Other songs cover with great depth and insight such topics as depression (“Baggage”), police shootings (“What It Means”), immigration (“Ever South”), and gender roles (“Filthy and Fried”), among others.
Despite the political stance of many of these songs,
American Band is not a protest album per se, and it manages to avoid many of the pitfalls commonly associated with statement music. The strength of
American Band lies not simply in its presentation of socially relevant topics, but in the emotional way it does so. While it would be easy to stand behind the mic and rant about injustice and throw out accusations, Hood and Cooley instead provide a nuanced, human portrait of the status quo. They don’t claim to have all the answers, and they’re not exactly calling anybody to action.
American Band succeeds because it highlights socially relevant topics while simultaneously tapping into our deepest insecurities. Take for example “Sun Don’t Shine”, another heartbreaking Hood number in which, over prominent piano chords, he presents a character who prefers to focus primarily on the bad in the world (the refrain: “I like it better when the sun don’t shine”), so that what little good there is seems far better by comparison (“A little rain to make the roses bloom”). Hood is presenting a possible response to the world we live in, and instead of criticizing it, he lets its bleakness speak for itself, indirectly encouraging positivity. This state of mind, he is saying, is tempting, but it’s one that should be avoided. Would it not be better to live in a world where nobody was inclined to feel this way?
But aside from all this, at the end of the day, this is a collection of songs, and on that level it is a great success as well. With eleven albums under their belts, the Drive-By Truckers are a veteran rock band who know their craft as well as anybody on the scene right now. While most songs present the band’s trademark mixture of Southern rock and alt-country, every member shines in his own right. Gorgeous organ tones and wonderful piano notes from keyboardist Jay Gonzalez color the arrangements throughout, helping to lift songs such as “What It Means” and “Sun Don’t Shine” to their stratospheric heights. Rich acoustic guitar strumming takes the stage in “Guns of Umpqua”, “What It Means”, and “Once They Banned Imagine”, providing a more reflective counterpoint to the other songs’ driving electricity. The drums and bass provide a solid backing to each song, mostly staying tastefully out of the way, though “Ever South” is grounded by deep, thumping bass notes and persistent drumming.
All things considered,
American Band stands as a modern masterwork. It doesn’t add any new moves to the playbook, but everything it does is executed excellently and with conviction. It is rare for a band to release an album this good this far into its career. Though
American Band may not be quite as amazing as past masterpieces
Decoration Day or
Southern Rock Opera, it reaffirms the Drive-By Truckers as one of the best in the business today. As relevant as it is in 2016, this is one that people will keep coming back to for years, if not decades, to come. Nobody else has produced a greater example of just what it means to be an American band in 2016. Play it loud, folks.
