Taken from their second new album of 2020 ‘The New OK’, a bleak but unflinching protest album released on ATO Records, Drive-By Truckers share new video by Jason Shevchuk for album track ‘Tough To Let Go’. The animation opens to an animated tethered stick-like figure slowly approaching a precipice – accompanied by that beautiful organ intro from Jay Gonzalez.
Originally conceived as a quarantine EP collecting material recorded in Memphis during sessions for THE UNRAVELING — including a fiery cover of The Ramones’ classic “The KKK Took My Baby Away” (vocals by bassist Matt Patton) — the project quickly grew to include provocative 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.” Tracks such as Hood’s “The New Ok” and “Watching The Orange Clouds” – inspired by the protests which followed George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police – were exchanged between Hood, co-founding singer/songwriter/guitarist Mike Cooley, bassist Patton, keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Jay Gonzalez, and drummer Brad Morgan and then 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.”
The physical release is out now including red transparent vinyl: Order via Amazon
photo credit: Jason Thrasher