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| Popmatters |
 These gripes/statements would be just superstition if each one didn’t have a bit of truth behind them. When a band is unsatisfied with the final product opts for a few extra months in the studio, it oftentimes results in a superior album. There are countless examples of flawed double albums (especially in the age of CDs) that could have easily been pared down to a great single album. And in terms of being prolific, artists such as Ryan Adams, Frank Black, and Prince have all weathered some criticisms for their occasional lack of self-editing. Of course, the best way to diffuse this criticism is to release two classic albums. Another approach is to release two vastly different albums. The Drive-By Truckers has opted for the latter approach. On last year’s The Big To-Do, the Drive-By Truckers, partly energized by the move to a new record label, released a barnstorming album that rocked as hard as any of their early releases, but also had a maturity to pull off some great narratives and whiskey-teared ballads. On this year’s Go-Go Boots, the statements aren’t nearly as boisterous, the mood is more consistent, and the characters that occupy the songs are more fleshed out. The first four songs are bluesy, bar-band standards that we’ve come to expect from the Truckers. On “Cartoon Gold”, lead singer Patterson Hood delivers such black humor zingers as “It’s like bringing flowers to your mama and tracking dogshit all over the floor/Jesus made the flowers, but it took a dog to make the story good” over a shuffling percussion....full text |
| Hearya |
| The Drive-By Truckers have a knack for capturing the gritty essence of small town blue collar, often poverty-stricken, life in the South. Their songs depict tales of down on their luck characters and the band is unapologetic in casting strippers, murderers, and marauders as protagonists. As a listener, it’s easy to feel a bit guilty empathizing with prostitutes in songs like “Birthday Boy” off of their previous album, The Big To Do. Go-Go Boots was mostly recorded during The Big To Do sessions and they clearly split their creativity into two distinct bodies of work. While last year’s release was an edge of your seat Southern Rock album, Go-Go Boots is its easy chair companion with an ottoman. It’s a refreshing Country/Soul album – the 11th in the Drive-By Truckers’ discography. Since Jason Isbell’s departure from the band, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley have equally shouldered songwriting and vocal duties with Shonna Tucker filling in on limited ballads. On Go-Go Boots, however, this balance is disrupted. Pattersoon Hood stands in the forefront and carries the album. Cooley has his moments. He and band shine on “Cartoon Gold” with pedal steel, banjo, acoustic and keys providing a backdrop for his oddly poetic lyrics: Getting all excited finding nothing that was never there before Is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor Cooley’s “Pulaski” is another highlight that tells the tale of a girl turning her back on her hometown in TN, her southern accent, and her religion for the bright lights of California. It’s a grass is greener story that doesn’t quite turn into the dream she’d hoped. Shonna Tucker also takes on more vocal duties on this album with “Dancin’ Ricky” and the Eddie Hinton cover, “Where’s Eddie.” I’d never been much of a fan of her songs, but mostly because her ballads created such a dramatic change of pace from the big rock songs before and after them. On Go-Go Boots, the change of pace is more subtle and the songs serve as welcomed reprieves. But again, and this is coming from someone with a stronger affinity for Cooley, Go-Go Boots is carried by Patterson Hood. The title track is some of the best storytelling you’ll find in song as it slowly unfolds like a movie. He tells the story of a philandering preacher whose wife mysteriously dies and whose son suspects foul play and then contemplates murdering the old man. The song climaxes with lines: Stained glass windows, Jesus looking down Organs playing music to the middle aged crowd His wife’s in the ground the devil’s in his head Them go-go boots are underneath the bed But it’s a small town and word gets around Several songs later, “The Fireplace Poker” seems to bring the story to resolution, but I’m not sure that this connection was intended or if these are separate story lines. Hood tells the story of a troubled man in “Used To Be A Cop” that seems to foretell more tragedy, but he leaves us hanging in the end. But I always knew Hood could spin a yarn. This album’s biggest surprise lies in Hood’s vocal performance on the Eddie Hinton cover of “Everybody Needs Love.” It’s a song I would have thought him incapable of pulling off, but he nails every note. I can’t wait to hear the crowd singing along to this one at their shows. ...full text |
| Popstache |
| Drive-By Truckers are bringing it all back home, sweet home. Channeling its native Muscle Shoals sound, the band paints that swampy Alabaman intersection of Soul and Country music lore. Eddie Hinton, a guitar legend of the local sound who passed away in 1995, serves as a muse to the album. Go-Go Boots features two Hinton covers, the first time Drive-By Truckers has tackled unoriginal material on a studio release. Go-Go Boots is dirty, brooding and thoughtful Southern rock. The band has abandoned overproduction in favor of a raw, wholesome and warm vintage sound. The guitars are imbibed with raunchy slides and heart-wrenching fire. The banjoes are plucked in a corner, behind the spoons. Each song on the album has the feeling of a live, one-take performance, the genius of Hinton’s production. In a nation plagued by lifeless “beers and tears” pop country music (that sounds more like a parody of itself than a subsistent genre) Drive-By Truckers has a refreshingly down home sound. This is honest, for the most part, upbeat honky tonking. One can’t help but do a little ho-down along to the sticks of “Cartoon Gold.” Drive-By Truckers have garnered the critical title “Alternative Country.” Though it may be cringe-worthy, what else do you call something that isn’t mainstream and yet undeniably country music? This is a band that first garnered renown in 2001 for their work Southern Rock Opera chronicling the rise and fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Both bands sweat native pride with an ear for long-form ballads of the common man, but the difference is there’s no sentimentality with the Drive-By Truckers. The truth, no matter how ugly, is the unerring palette of the Truckers....full text |
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