Drive-By Truckers American Band (Deluxe Edition) 2LP (Shadow Wave & Frosted Silver Vinyl)

American Band is the 11th studio album by Drive-By Truckers and was released during the tumultuous year of 2016, its politically charged lyrics reflecting those troubled times. The Chicago Tribune called it "one of the band's strongest front-to-back albums." Rolling Stone and NPR deemed it one of the best albums of that year. It is reissued here, in another election year, with a bonus LP of live recordings, updated liners from Patterson Hood and repackaged with archival artwork from Wes Freed. Shadow Wave/Frosted Silver 2 LP. Limited Edition.

This is music full of both fury and purpose, but with rare exceptions, American Band isn't an album of anger but of puzzlement and concern. Patterson Hood's songs are thoughtful journal entries informed by his experiences as a Southern man who had left his home for the Pacific Northwest, especially 'Ever South' and 'What It Means.' Mike Cooley, as always the Yang to Hood's Yin, writes and sings with greater grit and Southern swagger, but he delivers some of his smartest and most eloquent work to date with 'Surrender Under Protest,' 'Ramon Casiano,' and 'Once They Banned Imagine,' all superb studies of the flaws of human nature. And while American Band roars less than many of the band's previous works, it still sounds like the Drive-By Truckers, carried by the guitars of Hood and Cooley, Brad Morgan's superb drumming, and Jay Gonzalez's evocative keyboard work... American Band is an op-ed column with guitars, and it presents a message well worth hearing, both as politics and as music.