Balancing Darkness With Hope: Drive-By Truckers Surprise Release Album 'The New Ok' Today

[Cover photo credit to Jason Thrasher] Drive-By Truckers have announced the release of their second album of 2020, The New Ok, available digitally today via ATO Records. The CD and red vinyl will arrive on Friday, December 18. They've also premiered the title track for the album. Their previous 2020 album arrived only a few months ago, The Unraveling, which also sounds appropriate to our times. The New Ok was originally conceived as a quarantine EP collecting material recorded in Memphis during sessions for The Unraveling, including a cover of The Ramones’ classic “The KKK Took My Baby Away” (with vocals by bassist Matt Patton). However, the project grew to include new songs written and recorded over what Drive-By Truckers co-founder Patterson Hood calls “this endless summer of protests, riots, political shenanigans and pandemic horrors.” The new recordings were mixed by longtime DBT producer David Barbe. The result, says Hood, is “a full album that hopefully balances out the darkness of our current situation with a hope for better days and nights ahead.” Hood continues: “To call these past few months trying would be a dramatic understatement. Our lives are intertwined with our work in ways that give us our best songs and performances. It is a life that has often rewarded us beyond our wildest dreams. Speaking for myself, I don’t have hobbies, I have this thing I do. To be sidelined with a brand new album and have to sit idly while so much that I love and hold dear falls apart before my very eyes has been intense, heartbreaking, anger provoking and very depressing. It has gone to the very heart of our livelihoods and threatened near everything that we have spent our lives trying to build. Here’s to the hope that we can make 2021 a better year than this one has been. In the meantime, here’s to THE NEW OK!” Hood, DBT co-founder Mike Cooley, and guitarist/keyboardist Jay Gonzalez will all be performing solo shows on NoonChorus.com through the end of the year and beyond at 6p PT/9p ET. The performances will be available for 72 hours after each live broadcast. The scheduled dates are below: September 30 – Patterson Hood October 7 – Mike Cooley October 14 – Patterson Hood October 21 – Mike Cooley October 24 – Jay Gonzalez October 28 – Patterson Hood November 7 – Jay Gonzalez November 11 – Mike Cooley November 18 – Patterson Hood November 25 – Thanksgiving Filter – DBT Variety Show (featuring all 5 members) Tickets available here: noonchorus.com/pattersondbt noonchorus.com/cooleydbt noonchorus.com/jay-gonzalez

Balancing Darkness With Hope: Drive-By Truckers Surprise Release Album 'The New Ok' Today

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