‘The New OK’ Carries the Frustration of Drive-By Truckers

Deep down and welling in every one of us is the frustration that the novel Coronavirus has brought us: the canceled tours, the canceled plans, or even the grand vacation getaway is something that is out of grasp night now to avoid physical contact with other people.

But for a group like Drive-By Truckers, the band name itself represents their spirit to travel, to explore, and to share music with the thrills of adventure. In order to cope with their frustration due to the given scenario, the release of their new album is set for October 2, titled ‘The New OK’.

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A post shared by Drive-By Truckers (@dbtrockshow) on Sep 13, 2020 at 2:40pm PDT

Truck-full of Surprises

‘The New OK’ is the Drive-By Truckers’ 13^th album, succeeding their most recent release in January, ‘The Unraveling’ which houses 18 spirit-shaking songs. The album was recorded in the Memphis’ Sun Studios in 2018.

‘Watching the Orange Clouds’ and the album’s title track is bound to become the hitmakers of their upcoming album which was only released June and July this year. These are two of the songs that were written by the Truckers’ co-founder Patterson Hood over the summer while he is in quarantine with nothing to do.

On top of the nine songs that were included in ‘The New OK’, the Truckers did not forget to include an element of surprise. Apparently, they included in a Ramones cover (KKK Took My Baby Away) which is also the final track in their album. They also renditioned their original song ‘The Perilous Night’ which they released in 2017 during elections. For the first time in their band history, their bassist Matt Patton becomes the lead singer for a few of the songs in the given album. Watch out for that!

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Optimism Amidst Madness

The band explains that the album’s mood contains a fit of almost defiant anger and depressed sadness demeanor as their theme. But what they clarified is that, even though their situation pushes them to become pessimistic, they refuse to do so and will look forward to the future with a beam of hope.

But Cooley of the band feels kind of different as he is not pessimistic nor optimistic, just ‘half’, not ‘half-empty’ nor ‘half-full’. What’s good about him is that he can easily measure his temperament. His emotions have nothing to do with his mental drive.

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A post shared by Drive-By Truckers (@dbtrockshow) on May 27, 2020 at 9:26pm PDT

The Drive-By Truckers also experienced changes and adjustments. They recorded their tracks remotely, finishing Hood’s part first before handing the solo track to Brad Morgan for the percussions, Cooley, Patton, and Jay Gonzales finished the tracks altogether after recording the guitar works by Hood.

Since the release of the album is just right around the corner, ‘The New OK’ has already been available for pre-order and pre-save on various platforms, although physical copies of the album will only be available on December 18 as the community restrictions are sure to lie low back then.