Album: Drive-By Truckers, The Big To-Do (Pias)

The annual show of defiance by this sterling sextet of Southern analogue-rockers, recorded as usual in some boondocky swamp on knackered tube gear with a minimum of knobtwiddling.

Ouch. But if their fi is resolutely lo, then it's worth putting up with for the songs behind the riffs, which remain as literate, heart-felt and parochial as you could wish for. Mike Cooley's are especially good. His "Get Downtown" is the best song The Faces never wrote about idleness. The rest is soul-deep rowdiness, mostly.