American Band by Drive-By Truckers

American Band, the Drive-By Truckers' eleventh album, came out on ATO Records on September 30, 2016, and the title is no accident: this is the most political record the Athens, Georgia band had made. Cut that summer with long-time collaborator David Barbe producing, it was only their second album with just two songwriters, after English Oceans; every record before that had three. Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, college roommates from northern Alabama and the only constants in the lineup, are joined by Brad Morgan on drums, Jay Gonzalez on keys and guitar and Matt Patton on bass. Even the sleeve looks different: for the first time since Pizza Deliverance in 1999, there's no Wes Freed cover art.

The Southern rock crunch is still there, but the aim is outward now, and "Surrender Under Protest" and "What It Means" carry the record's urgency. The critics were won over.

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