Drive-by Truckers: Go-Go Boots (MIA)
If you’re looking for a quick snapshot of what the Drive-by Truckers are about, the names of some of their previous albums (this is number 11) provide as concise a brand statement as you’ll need. Among them are Gangstabilly, Pizza Deliverance, Alabama Ass Whuppin’, Southern Rock Opera and The Dirty South. So you know you’re going to get crisp vignettes and dirty tales, laced with irony, insight and empathy and played to a soundtrack of the finest alt-country and Southern rock.
But that makes it all sound a little formulaic, which it isn’t. There’s some sublime invention on this album, courtesy of a band that has three songwriters sharing the load. I can’t better another reviewer’s description of pedal-steel guitarist John Neff’s sound: his “filthy slide sounds like the devil walking”. This could stand in for their music in general, instruments and melody. Brimstone and bawdiness are a staple of Southern rock and these are intertwined throughout this album. In truth there’s nothing startling about the sounds and stories that the band weaves.
The title track, for example, tells of a small-town preacher falling prey to the usual temptations of the flesh, with the usual small-town judgment visited on him. But it’s in the small details that the Drive-by Truckers excel — the go-go boots under the bed, the soft wash of steel guitar on the weird Eddie Hinton track, Where’s Eddie, and the measured, restrained drums on The Thanksgiving Filter. It’s not an album that’ll change your life but one to make it a little more fun.