IN REVIEW: Drive-By Truckers - "Welcome to Club XIII"

 

Although politically motivated material has been a part of Drive-By Truckers' DNA since their inception over 25 years ago, they'd never been as explicitly political as they became in the time surrounding the Trump administration; a pair of albums, 2016's American Band and 2020's The Unraveling respectively, dove headfirst into the ugliness of Trump's America, resulting in sustained critical acclaim but harsh division among their fan base. Many of these fans had gravitated to DBT through their rough and ragged tales of life in the south (especially on their landmark 2001-04 run of Southern Rock Opera, Decoration Day and The Dirty South, the latter two showcasing the brilliant beginnings of Jason Isbell's craft), so it sort of makes sense that there were plenty of Trump supporters in the audience who didn't take too kindly to the increased criticism of so-called Republican Values.

For their fourteenth album (serendipity with the new album's title was thwarted by The New OK, which was culled from recent outtakes and a handful of new songs hastily released in response to the early stages of the pandemic), much of the inspiration is drawn from within, with the majority of the songs coming out more personal and/or autobiographic in nature. There are stories of the band's early days (the raucous title track, sprawling opener The Driver and epic closer Wilder Days), tales of heartbreaking loss (Shake and Pine, We Will Never Wake You in the Morning), and recollections of the past (Forged in Hell and Heaven Sent).

The most disappointing aspect of Welcome to Club XIII and, by extension, Drive-By Truckers during this era is the continued diminishment of Mike Cooley's role in terms of songwriting; once he and Patterson Hood became the last two remaining songwriters in the group (following departures of Jason Isbell and Shonna Tucker), they split creative output more or less evenly on 2014's English Oceans, with Cooley earning credit for 6 of 13 songs. He then got 5 of 11 on American Band but, on the three albums since, he's only written 5 songs that made it onto records as opposed to Hood's 21. For all I know, Cooley doesn't want to contribute more than he has, but the two songs he gets on Welcome to Club XIII are right up there with Hood's quality-wise; Maria's Awful Disclosures packs some much needed bite on a very mid-tempo album, while the gone-too-soon cautionary tale Every Single Storied Flameout, with its ragged guitars and unexpected horn section, is perhaps the finest song he's brought to the table since that aforementioned golden run of albums some twenty years ago.

Despite Drive-By Truckers increasingly becoming Patterson Hood's band, Welcome to Club XIII proves that their status among America's greatest storytelling bands is firmly intact; it's an exercise in hindsight that doesn't so much romanticize the past as it does regard it with reverence and, more importantly, acknowledge how lucky any of us are to have made it this far in such a fucked up world.

June 3, 2022 • ATO

Highlights The Driver • Shake and Pine • Every Single Storied Flameout