RSSMike Cooley/Patterson Hood/Jason Isbell [extended]
- Killers and Stars [New West, 2004] **
- Sirens of the Ditch [New West, 2007] *
- Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs) [Ruth St., 2009] A-
- Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance [ATO, 2012] B+
- Southeastern [Southeastern, 2013] ***
- Something More Than Free [Southeastern, 2015] A-
- Reunions [Southeastern, 2020] ***
- Live at the Shoals Theater [Southeastern/Thirty Tigers, 2020] A-
- Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams [ATO, 2025] A
See Also:
Consumer Guide Reviews:
Patterson Hood: Killers and Stars [New West, 2004]
Sketches and disses living-room style, with a sweet kissoff for Chan Marshall ("Uncle Disney," "Old Timers Disease") **
Jason Isbell: Sirens of the Ditch [New West, 2007]
Like so many major talents, more major in a group ("Dress Blues," "Try"). *
Patterson Hood: Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs) [Ruth St., 2009]
Shortly after the 2004 living-room collection Killers and Stars, the Drive-By Trucker and great American songwriter figured out a better way to make a solo album: not just with a band, duh, but with never-recorded mementos of his intermittently wasted late 20s juxtaposed against tokens of fatherhood at 40 and other life satisfactions. Took a while to get off the back burner, but the simmering helped it blend. Hood is too inclined toward dark-side thoughts and the world too inclined toward dark-side realities for the newer songs to come off complacent. But like the best Nashville vets, he knows enough to root both "Granddaddy," an optimistic take on having a kid, and "Pride of the Yankees," a worried one, in telling details, personal and historical respectively. The alt-rock vet he is takes time to level a few harsh words at old fling Courtney Love. But here's one thing that makes him a great American songwriter--they're tempered by kind ones. A-
Patterson Hood: Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance [ATO, 2012]
Hood earned this avowedly autobiographical album by creating fictional and fictionalized characters for 20 years. Its dozen songs were conceived to bait a memoiristic account of a turbulent period or two in his twenties, but the book stopped coming midway through so he made an album out of them instead. Sweetly skeletal arrangements featuring various bandmates and his bassist dad underpin the quietest and most winning singing of his career, with lyrics so crystalline you never need the booklet. But you can bet their import would be clearer if the book was there too. B+
Jason Isbell: Southeastern [Southeastern, 2013]
The problem with sobriety records is that they're so damn sober ("Elephant," "Cover Me Up") ***
Jason Isbell: Something More Than Free [Southeastern, 2015]
Although his alt-Americana base may find him less "authentic" now, it's a musical positive that getting sober has finally cheered Isbell up. The resigned confidence of his singing signifies mental health. His contained Alabama drawl and guitar-bass-drums aesthetic mark his people as Southern whites of modest prospects subject to the "powder keg ready to blow" that is God's will. Talk of The Bell Jar and "character sets" mark him as a participant-observer while reminding bicoastalists how many Southern whites of modest prospects live in a larger world than bicoastalists imagine. A-
Jason Isbell: Reunions [Southeastern, 2020]
Lest anyone think he's full of himself, this brave, soulful, articulate Nashville conscience singer turns the high beam on his own moral shortcomings ("It Gets Easier," "What've I Done to Help?") ***
Live at the Shoals Theater [Southeastern/Thirty Tigers, 2020]
For a great band, the Drive-By Truckers don't have what you'd call a compelling sound--soloists with front-and-center showpieces, singers who can carry a track on their own, a rhythm section whose groove is an identity in motion. Ultimately, and this is unusual in any of the more muscular species of rock, their strength over some 14 studio albums has been the songwriting. But having immersed in many of these albums while reviewing Stephen Deusner's DBT biography, I was surprised to find myself returning more often than necessary to this live benefit one-off, recorded in June 2014 with all ticket proceeds forwarded to their stroke-crippled promoter friend Terry Pace but only released as a double album in 2020. It's just the three frontmen, Patterson and Cooley partners for four decades with the mercurial Isbell back in the saddle because he cares about Pace too. The beauty part is that over strictly acoustic backing and picking all three frontmen can relax and deliver the lyrics, a total of 24 of them, just about every one a pleasure to hear anew, including several all but the most devoted fans forgot existed. The gem is Isbell's "Outfit" and everybody knows it. But "Daddy Needs a Drink" provides the perfect Father's Day touch. A-
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