180g black vinyl12", 2-LPThey earned wide acclaim with the double-disc Southern Rock Opera, a sprawling concept album about Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their three-guitar lineup and greasy look signify...

• 180g black vinyl
• 12", 2-LP

They earned wide acclaim with the double-disc Southern Rock Opera, a sprawling concept album about Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their three-guitar lineup and greasy look signify big, dumb rock in the minds of many, but their songwriting is relentlessly whip-smart. And what may be their greatest song, "The Living Bubba," is an ode to a righteous, hard-rocking redneck felled by AIDS. No, the Drive-By Truckers never do anything by the book, so it's no surprise that with Decoration Day, the band's first release for indie New West Records, Patterson Hood and his mates take another rewarding left turn. The album boasts a handful of crowd-pleasing, party-starting cuts, like the brash, cranky rocker "Hell No, I Ain't Happy" and the Stones ringer "Marry Me." Yet more common are moments of startling beauty (the steel solos on "The Deeper In" and "Loaded Gun in the Closet" and the jangling guitars, rolling melodies, and soulful fiddle breaks of "Heathens" and "My Sweet Annette") and heavy doses of recrimination and regret, as in the back-to-back suicide tunes "When the Pin Hits the Shell" and "Do It Yourself."

TRACKLIST: 

Side A -

1. The Deeper In
2. Sink Hole
3. Hell No, I Ain't Happy
4. Marry Me
5. My Sweet Annette

Side B -

1. Outfit
2. Heathens
3. Sounds Better in the Song
4. (Something's Got to) Give Pretty Soon 
5. Your Daddy Hates Me 

Side C -

1. Careless
2. When the Pink Hits the Shell
3. Do It Yourself
4. Decoration Day
5. Loaded Gun in the Closet 

Side D - 

(Blank)