The Drive-By Truckers' breakthrough album, 2001’s Southern Rock Opera, was a double-disc major statement stocked with songs about big Southern stuff like Confederate nostalgia and Lynyrd Skynyrd. This band have always wanted their home to be understood, but on 2003's Decoration Day the Truckers want listeners to understand them. They look at their own lives up close, in beautiful and painful detail. It's about the choices people make in life, and the price they pay for them.
DBT had recently made a big change when they released Decoration Day: Jason Isbell, a 24-year-old guitarist and songwriter, had joined the songwriting team of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. Isbell—an unknown playing alongside dudes a decade his senior—rebooted DBT with reams of nasty guitar playing and a gift for storytelling that elevated the group as a whole. Precious few groups feature three great songwriters, let alone three from the same state (Alabama) who can write about the South with authority.
Frontman Hood had figured his roiling “Heathens” would be the title track, until he heard the first song Isbell ever wrote and knew he had a keeper. “Decoration Day”—about a feud between two families so old and complicated nobody knows what they’re fighting for—was undeniable. "Heathens" is one of three sorrowful, self-owning songs by Hood—including "Your Daddy Hates Me" and "(Something's Got To) Give Pretty Soon"—that were inspired by his imploding marriage. And with tracks like “Loaded Gun in the Closet,” Cooley casts a sharp eye toward American violence. Decoration Day was knocked out fast, a bunch of first and second hot takes fueled by Stones-ish guitar interplay and Skynyrd-style hammerhead blues. It’s like the band knew what they had and wanted to get it down fast, before anybody changed their mind.