The gestation period for Patterson Hood’s Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams runs about 40 years. Which means events from his past have rung and stung him in different ways than they would have if some of the events described in these songs had been recorded more quickly. But distance brings with it a unique sense of perspective. There are shades of understanding that come with being 60 a younger Hood would not have understood.
There’s a solemness to the sounds of the opening track, ‘Exploding Trees’, where a natural disaster from his Northern Alabama hometown 30 years ago comes back to life in his recollection of the facts. While his keyboard playing may be rudimentary it helps to frame both the events and their effect on him today. The song builds in strength with the echoing bass drum playing off woozy keyboard notes.
Critical to the album was getting Hood out of his comfort zone and including a series of influences that usually don’t appear on his work with the Drive-By Truckers. Recounting falling in and out of love with his high school sweetheart, ‘A Werewolf and a Girl’, Hood and Lydia Loveless trade vocals. There’s a mournfulness to the moment as Hood displays his rudimentary piano skills (which became a critical element to the recordings as producer Chris Funk informed Hood to be prepared to handle the piano parts).
There’s also an intimacy to this music that would generally be at odds with the slash and burn rock of the Truckers. What’s also notable is the cast of characters assembled to fill out the sound, with the likes of Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby and MJ Lenderman adding their own touches to the disc. Patterson Hood has never sounded so vulnerable, even as he upsets the applecart on ‘Pinnochio’, where instead of dealing with lost innocence, he describes a life lived as a bit on an instigator. “It’s a whale of a tale with so many miles to go/ But I get a little closer each day to my long-term goal.”
From the swirls of strings and flute that fill ‘The Pool House’ to the raging guitar of ‘The Van Pelt Parties’ (which proves that Hood can still rock while playing with Wednesday), again and again Hood seems to go against type. In the process he proves that he is capable of doing just about anything he wants. Throughout the album he is inspired and unafraid, looking back on life despite never being quite sure where he is in this modern world.
Instead of fever dreams and rants against a new world view that is neither new, nor a clear picture of common events, Patterson Hood finds enough thoughts and prayers to analyse how he’s gotten to this point in time on Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams. This is a lesson in self-examination sorely needed in the current environment.
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