These are strange times indeed, and that means the Drive-By Truckers have something to say about them. The band have today announced a new album, American Band, and revealed this first cut – highlighting the clear political bent to the record. “‘Surrender Under Protest’ is a Mike Cooley composition that is unlike any DBT song we’ve ever recorded, yet somehow sounds unmistakably like us,” the band said. “In a way, that’s pretty indicative of the album as a whole.” Hit play and you’ll see what they mean. This is a clear, direct hit of a song from a band known for wrapping their messages in storytelling. It does sound like DBT, but it also sounds, to me at least, a lot like some of the records the likes of Neil Young have been making recently as they try to understand what they’re seeing around them. “These are crazy times and we have made a record steeped in this moment of history that we’re all trying to live through,” DBT added. “We’ve always considered ourselves a political band, even when that aspect seemed to be concealed by some type of narrative device i.e. dealing with issues of race by telling a story set in the time of George Wallace or class struggles by setting ‘Putting People of the Moon’ in the age of Reagan…American Band is a rock and roll call to arms as well as a musical reset button for our band and the country we live in. Most of all, we look at it as the beginnings of some conversations that we, as a people very much need to begin having if we ever hope to break through the divisions that are threatening to tear us apart.”
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