Drive-By Truckers — Go-Go Boots

10/10 According to legend, the French have a word for everything, but since I don’t speak it, the only thing I can compare to the sense of joy and bitterness found on Drive-By Truckers’ latest record, Go-Go Boots, is having sex with your spouse on the morning before your divorce is finalized. Sorry for the grown-up analogy

Samuel L Jackson is an Out-of-Touch Millionaire

From Samuel L. Jackson’s new pro-Obama/anti-Romney ad, gleefully reported by Yahoo, who by this point apparently realizes their bias is so obviously big, they have to recognize it in their own article,“Sorry my friend, but there’s no time to snore/an out-of-touch millionaire has just declared war/on schools, the environment, unions, fair pay/ We’re all on

Drive-By Truckers — The Big To-Do

7/10 Patterson Hood’s incredibly lengthy CD booklet intro to The Big To-Do reminds me of a long rambling speech I once made when giving a college biology presentation I suddenly realized I hadn’t quite completed correctly. I was overcompensating. The Big To-Do is the first Drive-By Truckers album since their early work that does not

Drive-By Truckers — The Fine Print (A Collection of Oddities and Rarities)

7/10 B-Side collections are rarely good propositions. In the case of Drive-By Truckers’ The Fine Print, it’s a mixed bag of decent, good, and great. Not coincidentally, these also fall under the category of alternate take, original, and cover.The two alternate versions here, “Uncle Frank” and “Goode’s Field Road” are completely negated by the originals found

Drive-By Truckers — Brighter Than Creation’s Dark

10/10 As I look back on some of my previous “Best of the Year” lists, there are many things I would change. Labeling Drive-By Truckers’ Brighter Than Creation’s Dark as 2008’s best album is not one of them. 2008 was an epic time for me, one of those year’s where everything just seemed a little

Drive-By Truckers — A Blessing and a Curse

8/10 While Drive-By Trucker’s Southern roots are still as wide as a water oak‘s, A Blessing and a Curse is the most straightforward, spare work of their career. Their three-guitar rock attack is still on full display, but the track times are shorter than ever, and the words and ideas are more lyrical than narrative.

Drive-By Truckers — The Dirty South

9/10 And here is the album that introduced me and thousands of others to Drive-By Truckers. When I was in college, one of the best ways to find new bands was to watch late night talk shows. Conan O’Brien and Carson Daly (yes, THAT Carson daily. Say what you will about his TRL hosting gig,

Drive-By Truckers — Decoration Day

8/10 The Drive-By Truckers follow their breakout, Southern Rock Opera, with another great rock album. Decoration Day kicks off with a song about the only two people in America currently serving prison time for incest, eases naturally into a song about a land-losing farmer who fantasizes about murdering the banker taking everything from him, then

Holy Crap, Deftones Have a New Song!

And it rules just as much as a Deftones song should. I wish every band could stay this good for this long. New album, Koi No Yokan, drops November 13th.

Drive-By Truckers — Southern Rock Opera

9/10 Southern Rock Opera marks the moment that Drive-By Truckers became the rock-and-roll chroniclers of The South. The more jokey songs of the past and the dominant influence of country music upon their sound vanish here. Not to say that the band lose their sense of humor–it’s still one of the greatest weapons in their