The title Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams reads as a most likely fit for The Drive-by Tuckers’ Southern Rock Opera. Still, nothing save for Patterson Hood’s distinctive voice, and perhaps one song resembles the sound of Hood’s main band on his fourth and first solo effort in over 12 years. Defying almost any expectations, this project finds Hood playing piano and enriching these songs with strings, woodwinds, and vintage analog synthesizers. These songs are like dreams and stem from early childhood and adolescence and notes scribbled into notebooks over the years.
Only that one song is guitar-driven and ‘loud.’ This intimate endeavor seems to ooze from the woodwork or in from the creaky windows in a century-old home. In other words, it wafts over you rather than grabbing you by the neck. Nonetheless, it commands attention. Hood worked with his Portland, OR, neighbor and friend, producer/musician Chris Funk of The Decemberists. The impressive list of collaborators includes Lydia Loveless, Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, Stuart Bogie, The Decemberists, and more.
Hood began to write the album during the lockdown and composed on the piano in an admirable attempt to expand his musical horizons. Though reluctant to play piano on the album, he eventually did through Funk”s insistence. Funk, also mainly a guitarist by trade, mostly played keyboards on the album. Beyond those already mentioned are Brad and Phil Cook (megafaun), Wednesday, David Barbe, Jay Gonzalez and Brad Morgan of the DBTs, Daniel Hunt (Neko Case), and Steve Drizoz (Jerry Joseph).
The stark, piano-driven “Exploding Trees” opens with Hood singing softly (if you can imagine such a thing). Just shy of the three-minute mark, Morgan’s thumping drums and crashing cymbals bring it into the ‘explosive’ range. You may have heard the single “A Werewolf and a Girl,” stamped by steady drum beats, whirling keyboards, and Hood singing about a memory from 40 years ago, with Lydia Loveless contributing lovely harmonies, meshing instead surprisingly well with Hood’s vocals. Underneath, among the many sounds, Berlin’s baritone sax breaks through. More excellent vocal harmonies appear on the country ballad “The Forks of Cypress” with Katie Crutchfield. It’s a simple melody, but the keys and synths surrounding the vocals make it timeless and as accurate as Hood recollects his earliest visions of the story. These two tracks are utterly beautiful as are his reminiscing about his godmother in the gently flowing, atmospheric “Miss Coldiron’s Oldsmobile” and the more abstract “Pool House” with its cinematic bent via swelling strings, disconnected piano lines, and ultimately a flute solo.
Now, to that one song. Halfway through, we hear the guitar crunch and Morgan’s attack on the kit in “The Van Pelt Parties,” filled with boisterous piano, snarling guitars, and Hood singing in DBT vocal mode with Wednesday. Yet, that’s the only brief injection of rock. The aching “Last Hope” follows, the kind of tune Hood may perform on the piano on the upcoming tour. The tune rarely moves from its initial chord structure as intentionally; he brings it to no tangible resolution. “At Safe Distance” again shows restraint with Hood singing over the ambient backdrop. Hood feels that the acoustic closer,” Pinnochio,” is one of his best-written songs, another contemplative country ballad. The crux of the story is his first exposure in the 1940 Disney cartoon, but Hood comments that as he’s aged, The Blue Fairy looks a lot like his grandmother, and his great uncle was sort of a Geppeto character. Memories take on different shapes.
Before that track, though, “The Exploding Trees” appears, inspired by a natural disaster in his hometown of North Alabama. When he was 20 years old, he wrote the tune, tried it out with Adams House Cat (his first band with Mike Cooley) and later with the DBTs. They’ve never played it live, but at one point, it was considered for Southern Rock Opera. So, there is a connection, after all.
Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams is a massively deep and rich literary and musical album that reveals more colors and lyrical insights each time through. It may even encourage you to challenge your own memories, which change so much over time.
