Drive-By Truckers Announce New Album, 2020 Tour Dates & Share Single

Drive-By Truckers will release a new studio album, The Unraveling, via ATO Records on January 31. The band announced 2020 tour dates in support of the record, which features the lead single, “Armageddon’s Back In Town.”

The band’s 12th studio album marks the longest span between DBT releases. The follow-up to 2016’s American Band was recorded at the historic Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis with engineer Matt Ross-Spang and longtime producer David Barbe. Co-founding singer-songwriter/guitarists Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley were joined by DBT bassist Matt Patton, keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Jay Gonzalez, and drummer Brad Morgan, plus special guests Cody Dickinson of North Mississippi Allstars, Patti King of The Shins and Kyleen King who performs with Brandi Carlile.

Hood stated the following regarding The Unraveling:

How do you put these day to day things we’re all living through into the form of a song that we (much less anybody else) would ever want to listen to? How do you write about the daily absurdities when you can’t even wrap your head around them in the first place? I think our response was to focus at the core emotional level. More heart and less cerebral perhaps.

The past three-and-a-half years were among the most tumultuous our country has ever seen and the duality between the generally positive state of affairs within our band while watching so many things we care about being decimated and destroyed all around us informed the writing of this album to the core.

While a quick glance might imply that we’re picking up where 2016’s American Band album left off, the differences are as telling as the similarities. If the last one was a warning shot hinting at a coming storm, this one was written in the wreckage and aftermath. I’ve always said that all of our records are political but I’ve also said that ‘politics is personal’. With that in mind, this album is especially personal.

Both Hood and Cooley will embark on separate solo tours in December. Drive-By Truckers will support The Unraveling next year with three shows in Colorado in January. An extensive tour will then begin on February 15 with three shows at the 40 Watt Club coinciding with the 26th anniversary of Hood’s first visit to Athens, Georgia. Drive-By Truckers will continue to tour on the East Coast in February, followed by shows in the Midwest and West Coast in March. The tour heads back east through the central and southern states in April. Following an appearance in early-May at Atlanta’s Shaky Knees festival, Drive-By Truckers will head to Europe for shows in June.

Watch the lyric video for “Armageddon’s Back In Town” below:

The Unraveling Tracklist

1. Rosemary With A Bible and A Gun
2. Armageddon’s Back In Town
3. Slow Ride Argument
4. Thoughts and Prayers
5. 21st Century USA
6. Heroin Again
7. Babies In Cages
8. Grievance Merchants
9. Awaiting Resurrection