Album Review: Drive-By Truckers - English Oceans

Pared back to a lean five-piece, English Oceans is of the 'crank it up' end of the Truckers' oeuvre, coupled with a more equal balance between the band's constants, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. Shit Shots Count sets the tone: a typical Cooley raggedy Rolling Stones twang, complete with brass, the big drum crash throughout further suggesting the album's 'live in the studio' nature. Meantime, Hood's sidetracks can be obvious – the Lynyrd Skynyrd rebel march of The Part Of Him to an odder, almost Flaming Lips-echoed drift off into the stars in Pauline Hawkins. Still solid.