By Kevin (@Prufesuroak)
The Sounds of 2014 is a year end round up of the albums that stuck with us this.
Drive-By Truckers have always been pretty consistent, they haven’t released anything bad since… ever (1996); English Oceans which came out March 4, 2014 is no exception to that. The album really hits hard and stays that way throughout. This being their tenth studio album.
The album has no let downs, it is a good album through and through. It seems as though Drive-By Truckers have perfect the art of making records.
It starts out with “Shit Shots Count” and it is a blasting track. It’s got their unique sound all over it (actually throughout the album). It is what you expect in a Drive-By Trucker record, but in a good way. You expect quality, familiarity, relatability and as well as something new with any record you listen to. And this song is all of that and more.
“When He’s Gone” is perhaps the noisiest track of the album, and not to say that’s a bad thing. The song starts with this reverberating muted attacks that eventually unmutes into this wall of fuzz and compression that feeds into your brain… The song is exceptionally written, has tuneful music and a catchy chorus.
“Primer Coat” starts with this amazing hummable arpeggio accompanied with a swinging progression with the guitar slightly ahead of the beat (or the beat behind the guitar) but either way it supports and supplies something else that makes the song great. The song tells the story of a man sitting out by a swimming pool, thinking about his grown up daughter.
The Drive-By Truckers have pretty much gone out and released albums almost every year and touring almost non-stop. The decision was made to do less shows to “miss it” as Patterson Hood said on an interview on KEXP. The band has gone through a lot of turmoil the past few years, lineup changes and a dry spell for Mike Cooley (one of the songwriters, along with Hood) which went through The Big To-Do and Go-Go Boots. The two albums were recorded at the same time but were released a year apart while they toured for the first and toured again for the second.
English Oceans was a departure from all that, Cooley was writing more again and brought back the fun by not touring as extensively that they used to. This change did work out for the band as the album is considered their best since 2008’s Brighter Than Creation’s Dark.
As with any southern rock record the songs should really be ballads about people, characters stories and they do not fail to do that. “Pauline Hawkins” tells about a nurse trying to tell off suitor. “Made Up English Oceans” is about a politician thinking about how he’s fooled people. “First Air Of Autumn” a folk-country-esque track, is about the first smell of autumn that makes you think about high school.
“Grand Canyon” is a personal narrative that Hood penned about an a trip to the Grand Canyon. The song starts and sticks with this ascending and descending guitar riff paired with sluggish slightly behind drums, chimey organs and ringing distorted single chords which just makes the song.
The band never do release flops but this album is special, this album is a cut above the rest, well the previous two at least. You can really see an improvement that the band chose to do. They made lifestyle changes that made them happy and in turn made them make better music, which in turn makes the fans happy. This album is solid through and through