Drive-By Truckers
The Unraveling
Release Date: Jan 31, 2020
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Country-Rock, Southern Rock
Record label: ATO
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Album Review: The Unraveling by Drive-By Truckers
Very Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 7.1/10
Venturing north for his 1964 presidential campaign, Alabama demagogue George Wallace gleefully shocked the intellectuals and hippies by quoting Martin Luther King Jr. 's observation that Chicago was "the most segregated city in America. " The Drive-By Truckers abhor their home state's former governor, but they do share his eye for contradiction.
Based on rating 7/10
Timing's a bitch. Drive-By Trucker's last album, American Band, came out without any knowledge of the 2016 election results. Its' follow-up, The Unraveling, was recorded and in the can before renewed flare-ups in the Middle East and the 45th president's impeachment trial. For a band that wears its message on its sleeve, those were rich moments to miss.
Opinion: Excellent
As Joe Strummer once told us, anger can be power, but what Joe didn't mention is that it tends to burn hot and fast. Once it's gone, what's left? At what point do you run out of productive rage and find yourself weighed down by the ashes of hopelessness and defeat? When the Drive-By Truckers wrote and recorded 2016's American Band, the United States was a nation ankle-deep in the rising waters of racism and division, with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump just a troubling roadside curiosity. In the truest sense, 2020's The Unraveling is the companion piece to American Band, an update where tragically little has gotten better four years on, and our national malaise is greater than ever.
'The Unraveling'
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