Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots

Drive-By Truckers
Go-Go Boots
2011 ATO

Since July of 2009, the Drive-By Truckers have issued four releases. One was a live album, another a rarities/B-sides album, the third the 2010 studio album The Big To-Do, and now another studio album entitled Go-Go Boots. There’s only so much melancholy and depravity a band can write about in such a short period of time, which may explain the inclusion of “Everybody Needs Love”, an Eddie Hinton cover with a shiny and happy chorus that stands in stark contrast to the usual subject matter of the band.

Not to worry, however. Though “Everybody Needs Love” may find the band taking a quick detour, they quickly u-turn back to the lyrical areas they’re most comfortable with. Go-Go Boots tells stories of hit men-hiring and sexually deviant priests (in different songs), a former policeman at the end of his personal and professional rope, brutally depressing family holiday dinners, and more topics of the downtrodden and morally bankrupt. The Truckers haven’t lost any of their lyrical abilities; all three songwriters are sharp as a tack throughout Go-Go Boots, and tracks like “Cartoon Gold” and “The Thanksgiving Filter” present some of the finest wordsmithing the band has yet produced.

Go-Go Boots was recorded concurrently with The Big To-Do, with songs from the recording sessions being split between the two records. Since The Big To-Do was released first, about a year ago now, it would make sense to think that the songs on Go-Go Boots are leftovers that didn’t make the cut for the previous album. That isn’t necessarily true (the band apparently recorded enough album-quality tracks at the time to give them the luxury of splitting the songs up into the two albums), but the result still feels a tad haphazard and unbalanced.

De facto bandleader and lead songwriter/guitarist Patterson Hood tackles most of the writing and singing duties on Go-Go Boots, and he has many shining moments, particularly during the chilling “The Fireplace Poker” and the soaring chorus of the aforementioned “The Thanksgiving Filter”. As always, however, the best songs are contributed by guitarist Mike Cooley, who penned its two best tracks, “Cartoon Gold” and “Pulaski”. The tone of Cooley’s songs, heavy on banjos and aided by his sweet Southern drawl, are musically lighter than most of Hood’s tracks, but don’t spare any of the angst and restlessness found elsewhere on the album. They provide depth to Go-Go Boots and albums previous, and the record would have benefitted from their increased presence.

Hood is largely responsible for a lot of the methodical muscle of the band’s previous albums, but Go-Go Boots finds him lightening things up somewhat. Missing are many of the booming guitar riffs and raucous rock songs that peppered those old records. They’ve been replaced on Go-Go Boots by a softer touch, maintaining their straightforwardness but taking the volume down a tad. This results in some fine songs, but the sameness begins to stand out about three-quarters through the listen.

Go-Go Boots is a solid collection. Little is outstanding, but each song is at the very least pleasant, and added together they make for an enjoyable listen. Often times the “we had these songs left over from the last album, so we might as well put them out” records are miserably boring and stale; Go-Go Boots avoids that pitfall with its inspired songwriting and its differences from the album recorded alongside it.

B

John Lacey