Tough Love Songs: Patterson Hood, 'Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs)'

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PATTERSON HOOD'S SECOND solo album has been nearly twenty years in the making. Following long on the heels of 2004's largely acoustic "Killers and Stars," this collection features new recordings of older material, including a few songs he wrote in the early 1990s, long before Hood co-founded the Drive-By Truckers and became synonymous with hard-boiled tales of the New South and its conflicted denizens.

The title track, "Pollyanna," and "Screwtopia," all from the previous decade, sit well with newer tracks like "I Understand Now" and "She's a Little Randy," revealing a unique songwriting voice that was surprisingly well developed eighteen years ago and has only grown more confident since then.

Less a departure from Hood's familiar sound than "Killers and Stars," "Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs)" sounds pretty much like another Truckers album, with most of the band members contributing. Electric guitars rule every song, and styles range from old-school country to swampy Southern rock to soulful rave-ups to classic-rock anthems, but Hood takes all the vocal and songwriting duties instead of sharing them with Mike Cooley and Shonna Tucker.

This is not a criticism: Hood carries the album comfortably and confidently, and Murdering Oscar is a sound argument for his status as the best American songwriter of the moment.

The hallmark of Hood's songwriting is its moral intricacy. He narrates the title track from the perspective of a woman who has killed her abusive lover; as the abrasive guitars crescendo to lend her confession dramatic weight, she rejects any sympathy or absolution: "I don't need salvation 'cause I saved myself," he sings. "I killed Oscar and I forgave me."

Hood has no qualms inhabiting equally hard-luck characters on "Belvedere" and "Screwtopia," and on "Walking Around Sense," he muses about the relationship between someone who bears a strong resemblance to Courtney Love and her daughter, but never condemns the mother for her public foibles. Speaking as one of her lovers, he counsels the girl, "Don't let it affect you. You mama loves you."

These tough-love songs are interspersed with tracks that are much more personal than expected and that define "Murdering Oscar" as a solo album than a group effort. "Pride of the Yankees" explores America post-9/11 and ends with both worry and hope for Hood's newborn daughter.

This is treacherous territory: Songs about 9/11 and songs about the artist's children tend to gravitate toward schmaltzy sentimentality, but Hood sidesteps that trap by letting his charmingly rudimentary piano playing and John Neff's bootgazery pedal steel do most of the heavy lifting.

"Murdering Oscar" ends with "Back of a Bible," one of two odes to Hood's wife. It's a love song about writing love songs, specifically how they cannot begin to capture or convey his feelings satisfactorily. Hood is, of course, being overly modest, as this album further proves he understands how a simple song can express complex and often contradictory emotions. In this regard, "Murdering Oscar" kills.

» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; with Will Johnson; Thu., June 25, 8 p.m., $15; 202.667.4490. (U St.-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor Stephen M. Deusner
Photo courtesy Jason Thrasher