[rating=4.00]
Drive-By Truckers front-man Patterson Hood’s second solo record, Murdering Oscar (and other love songs), flows like a DBT rock show—hook ‘em, rest ‘em, then beat ‘em senseless—and while saving the best for last may not always be the best recipe for an album, Hood leaves nothing on his plate. His songs are as honest and ragged as he is, but like their author, they all stick to the story, and the Drive-By Truckers front man is always full of good ones.
Hood ’s never worried much about rhyme when there’s none to fit, and he’s willing to leave lines unfinished if they feel right. “Murdering Oscar” and “Pollyana” start the record off a little rough, but his leathery growl and the Steinbeckian toughness of his characters dare you to complain. Murdering Oscar sticks to familiar territory for Hood—stories of loss, guilt and redemption—but it has a wisdom that only comes with age. The poppy, playful advice of “She’s a Little Randy” and “Walking Around Sense” walks the thin line between longing for the things we can’t have and knowing when to give them up, and “Heavy and Hanging” paints the walls with the inevitable blood spilled when we cross too far to one side.
All of Hood’s characters, even the triumphant ones, have a familiar sadness, but it’s always tempered with the reality of what is, and whether it’s the death of American grit on “Pride of the Yankees” or just a song about writing a song like “Back of a Bible,” they all have a story to tell, and that’s what songs are supposed to do. And if that’s true, Murdering Oscar puts Patterson Hood right up there with the best; there’s nothing particularly extraordinary about his music, except that he’s the only one who could tell these tales. And they need to be told.
