The Big To-Do

iTunes Review

With 2010’s The Big To-Do, Drive By Truckers supply the songs for the Great Recession. These are lives doomed by circumstances beyond their control, where the income doesn’t meet the bills due. Fathers leave (“Daddy Learned to Fly”), wives confront unfaithful husbands (“You Got Another”) and alcoholics forget the damage they’ve done (“The Fourth Night of My Drinking”). These tales of economic woe (“This F****g Job”) are matched with a tough, Americana rock that takes Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers to their deepest Southern accents. Patterson Hood is arguably the finest, most convincing singer to emerge from Southern rock in decades and his foil, Mike Cooley, provides elements of Stones-esque cool to a combination that’s gently influenced by bassist Shonna Tucker. It’s barroom rock with a tear in the beer, as Cooley’s “Birthday Boy” celebrates in sorrow, while Tucker’s “Drag the Lake Charlie” goes fishing for bodies. Drive By Truckers remain one of the most important bands of the new century.