Consumer Guide Album

Patterson Hood: Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams [ATO, 2025]
I found the head Drive By Trucker's quasi-autobiographical songwriting here so varied and indeed interesting that I dipped back two decades to reaccess his 2004 solo debut Killers and Stars, which I assayed in 120 B plus/A minus words for Blender but never gave it its own review in the Consumer Guide. Not bad, right, only the new one's even better. From Hurricane Helene wrecking North Carolina in the opener to the plane-crash funeral at the close, quite a few of these retrospectives tend dark. But the truly serious part is how much detail suffuses Hood's tales of eros gone wrong and pool-house suicide and Oldsmobiles that get ten miles a gallon and classy Christmas parties over an eight-year-old's head. Extra thanks to Wednesday for chipping in when appropriate. A