Drive-By Truckers

With 2008’s masterful Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, Drive-By Truckers resumed a run of great albums that many fans felt was broken with 2006’sA Blessing And A Curse, the band’s final record with singer-songwriter-guitarist Jason Isbell. The winning streak continued in 2010 with The Big To-Do, which finds the band fortifying its considerable strengths while also making a play for a larger audience with hard-hitting, easily digestible songs, like the working-class fist-pumper “This Fucking Job.” The Big To-Do’s weaker follow-up, Go-Go Boots, hit the scene in 2011, though highlights like the chugging bummer “Used To Be A Cop” make it still worth a listen. The group’s now without bassist and guitarist Shonna Tucker, who left the group in late 2011.

Updated 01/17/2012