Rock - One of the singer/songwriters for Southern rock behemoth Drive By Truckers, Patterson Hood will release his second solo album June 23rd on his own Ruth St. Records. Hood's solo debut, 2004's Killers And Stars, was a collection of home and road recordings that recalled Springsteen's Nebraska in the grit of the songs' sound and subject matter. Murdering Oscar also has its roots in Hood's 4-track, but the songs - some written and initially recorded over 15 years ago - have been fleshed out in the studio with long-time Truckers producer David Barbe and The Screwtopians, an ace backing band comprising members of Drive By Truckers and Denton, TX-based good ol' boys Centro-matic. Hood's father, legendary Muscle Shoals session man David Hood, appears on three tracks. 

While much of the material is the same dark, sardonic stuff that characterized Killers and Stars - subjects include Kurt Cobain's suicide and Hood's divorce from his first wife - the more recent songs brim with optimism. "I wrote those first songs from a running-away-from-family point of view," Hood said, "And I was going in to record them right before having a baby, so I kind of wrote songs that were a counterpoint to all of them." The broader emotional spectrum, combined with the Oscar's fuller sound, should make it a more dynamic album than Hood's promising yet spare debut.

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