Drive-By Truckers are reissuing another album. A new edition of 2003’s Decoration Day is out November 14 via New West. The Definitive Decoration Day includes a remixed and remastered version of the original album and a bunch of songs recorded live at Flicker Bar, in Athens, Georgia, in 2002. Below, listen to two versions of “Sink Hole,” the remixed and remastered track and a recording from Flicker Bar.
The Definitive Decoration Day is being released digitally and in a 4xLP box set. David Barbe, who produced the original album, did the new remix, and Greg Calbi remastered it. The physical collection includes a 40-page, full-color book with photographs, artwork, and a new essay by longtime Pitchfork contributor Stephen M. Deusner.
In a press release, Patterson Hood discussed the band’s Flicker Bar show that’s now captured on The Definitive Decoration Day. “We decided that it would be fun to go play an acoustic late-night show at the tiny Flicker Bar, less than a block away from our beloved 40 Watt Club,” he said. “We ended up playing a set that included all but one song off of our new, but still unfinished album. I didn’t even know until recently that there was an existing tape of the show. This is a beautiful document of our band at a very crucial and joyous moment in time. I’m so happy that it exists.”
Decoration Day was the follow-up to Drive-By Truckers’ acclaimed third album, Southern Rock Opera, and it was the band’s first with Jason Isbell. “The legacy of the band has definitely grown,” Isbell reflected in a statement, “and there’s a new appreciation for the Truckers and especially for that era of Decoration Day. Without them, you wouldn’t have the kind of work being done by MJ Lenderman and Wednesday and Waxahatchee and a bunch of other acts. I can hear the Truckers in all that music.”
In 2023, Drive-By Truckers reissued 2004’s The Dirty South as The Complete Dirty South. Then, last year, they shared a new deluxe edition of Southern Rock Opera.
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The Definitive Decoration Day:
01 The Deeper In (Remixed / Remastered)
02 Sink Hole (Remixed / Remastered)
03 Hell No, I Ain’t Happy (Remixed / Remastered)
04 Marry Me (Remixed / Remastered)
05 My Sweet Annette (Remixed / Remastered)
06 Outfit (Remixed / Remastered)
07 Heathens (Remixed / Remastered)
08 Sounds Better in the Song (Remixed / Remastered)
09 (Something’s Got To) Give Pretty Soon (Remixed / Remastered)
10 Your Daddy Hates Me (Remixed / Remastered)
11 Careless (Remixed / Remastered)
12 When the Pin Hits the Shell (Remixed / Remastered)
13 Do It Yourself (Remixed / Remastered)
14 Decoration Day (Remixed / Remastered)
15 Loaded Gun in the Closet (Remixed / Remastered)
