THE DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

Go-Go Boots

[ATO]

Like Colonel Sanders’ chicken, Patterson Hood’s songwriting is a testament to the power of a good formula. The lead Trucker tends to write about doomed Southern schemers—victims of fate, folly or some combination of the two—and he introduces yet another cast of Dixie miscreants on the band’s ninth album. Most are dark, desperate characters; Hood devotes two whole songs—the title track and “The Fireplace Poker”—to the sensational true-crime tale of a kinky preacher plotting his wife’s murder. Boots stems from the same sessions that yielded last year’s The Big To-Do, a collection of beefy classic-rock jams. Heavy on ballads, mood pieces and the down-home country songs of guitarist Mike Cooley and bassist Shonna Tucker, this album is subtler and more sonically diverse than its companion. The stories are slow to unfurl, but the details are finger-lickin’ good. –Kenneth Partridge

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