UPDATE: Check out the debut of debut of the song “This Fucking Job” over at Stereogum

New York, NY—ATO Records is pleased to announce the signing of Drive-By Truckers and their label debut, The Big To-Do. The album, which will be the band’s tenth in their thirteen-year career, is scheduled to be released March 16, 2010. The Big To-Do features thirteen new tracks from the Drive-By Truckers and was produced by their long time producer, David Barbe (Sugar, Bettye LaVette). “It’s very much a rock album,” says Patterson Hood of the Trucker’s upcoming release. “Very melodic and more rocking than anything we’ve done since disc 2 of Southern Rock Opera.”

The inspiration for The Big To-Do came to the band during their time on the road. “We’ve often set our songs and albums in different periods of time, but this one finds us directly in our present. Riding all through the highways of America (and Europe) trying to make sense of a very different world than the one we grew up in,” says Hood. “I don’t write a lot of songs on the road, but I did more than usual on this album and many more were inspired by or set there, either in a literal sense or something I witnessed or heard about while I was out there.”

The Trucker’s sense of purpose in writing this album translates into a delicious assortment of Trucker songs themed loosely around crime and (self-) punishment. “The Wig He Made Her Wear,” Patterson says, is both a true story (as seen on Court TV) and the closest he’s come to making the movie he started out to make a decade or more back. “The Fourth Night of My Drinking” will speak for itself, and “This Fucking Job” (paired thematically with Cooley’s wry “Get Downtown”) is arguably the most political song the Truckers have made since “Living Bubba.” Which leaves the deceptive, airy simplicity of Shonna Tucker’s “You Got Another” and “(It’s gonna Be) I Told You So” to reckon with.

The Drive-By Truckers will be hitting the road at the beginning of the new year.  A full tour supporting The Big To-Do will be announced in early 2010.

Drive-By Truckers on tour:

1/28 Huntsville, AL  Crossroads Music Hall

1/29 Mobile, AL        Soul Kitchen

1/30 Tuscaloosa, AL  Jupiter Bar & Grill

2/11 Greenville, SC   Handlebar

2/12 Raleigh, NC       Lincoln Theatre

2/13 Raleigh, NC       Lincoln Theatre

2/14 Knoxville, TN    Bijou Theatre

2/25 Charlotte, NC     Neighborhood Theatre

2/26 Charlottesville, VA  Jefferson Theatre

2/27 Charlottesville, VA  Jefferson Theatre

Check back soon for more tour dates.