The Drive-By Truckers will release The Definitive Decoration Day on November 14, 2025, via New West Records. The 4-LP box set features the 15-track album remixed by its original producer David Barbe, remastered by Greg Calbi, and cut at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, UK. The new collection includes the previously unreleased double album Heathens Live at Flicker Bar, Athens, GA - June 20, 2002, as well as a 40-page, full-color book featuring never-before-seen photos and artwork, as well as a new essay written by Drive-By Truckers’ biographer Stephen Deusner, author of Where the Devil Don’t Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers. Originally released in 2003, the album garnered widespread critical acclaim, with Pitchfork saying Decoration Day is “one of the more ambitious records of the (very) early 21st century” and one that “further confirms the Drive-By Truckers’ status as the most poetic and insightful Southern rockers in existence today.” An advance look at The Definitive Decoration Day can be seen HERE.
Today, Uncut Magazine premiered the newly remixed and remastered album version of “Sink Hole” alongside the previously unreleased live version of the song featured on Heathens Live at Flicker Bar, Athens, GA - June 20, 2002. Loosely based on the 2002 Oscar Award-winning short film The Accountant—directed by Ray McKinnon and starring Walton Goggins—the song tells the story of a struggling farmer fighting back against a banker foreclosing on his family farm.
SHARE “SINK HOLE” REMIXED & REMASTERED
SHARE “SINK HOLE” LIVE IN 2002
Decoration Day was the Drive-By Truckers’ first album with Jason Isbell, who joined the band in late 2001. It features the DBT standards, “Sink Hole,” Marry Me,” “My Sweet Annette,” and Isbell’s first songs with the band: “Outfit” and the title track. “The legacy of the band has definitely grown,” says Isbell, “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.”
Heathens Live at Flicker Bar, Athens, GA - June 20, 2002 is a stripped-down, acoustic performance from the band’s hometown, recorded a year before Decoration Day’s release. The previously unreleased album is a rich, historic document in the band’s evolution and a holy grail for their fans, featuring the band performing several of these songs for the first time ever. Says Hood, “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. 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 remains an incredibly influential album in the Drive-By Truckers’ catalog, one that has connected with new generations of artists and fans. Karly Hartzmann of Wednesday says, “Decoration Day reminds me that a song can be a piece of advice, a grudge, a suicide note, a bargaining for mercy, or a veneer over the rot. It’s music that delivers the bad news but kisses the bruises it leaves.”
Craig Finn of The Hold Steady says, “Decoration Day was the Drive-By Truckers’ three songwriters firing on all cylinders—alternately thoughtful, pissed off, charming, surly and often hilarious. I marvel at this record. It’s a true American classic.”
BJ Barham of American Aquarium adds, “This is, without a doubt, one of my desert island records. Without DBT’s Decoration Day, there is no American Aquarium. Long live DBT!”
The Definitive Decoration Day follows the band’s deluxe edition of their album Southern Rock Opera, originally released in 2001, as well as The Complete Dirty South, originally released in 2004. It will be available across digital platforms, standard black vinyl, and as a 3-CD set. A limited olive color vinyl edition will be available at independent retailers, and a limited to 150 blue-and-burgundy-swirl color vinyl edition will be available at Seasick Records in Birmingham, Alabama. In addition, a special, limited-to-300 HeAthens red-and-black vinyl edition will be available at local participating retailers in Athens, Georgia, and for pickup at the New West Records’ Athens office. A limited-to-1,000 burgundy color vinyl edition is available for pre-order NOW via NEW WEST RECORDS.
The Definitive Decoration Day Track Listing:
The Original Album Remixed & Remastered:
1. The Deeper In
2. Sink Hole
3. Hell No, I Ain’t Happy
4. Marry Me
5. My Sweet Annette
6. Outfit
7. Heathens
8. Sounds Better in the Song
9. (Something’s Got to) Give Pretty Soon
10. Your Daddy Hates Me
11. Careless
12. When the Pin Hits the Shell
13. Do It Yourself
14. Decoration Day
15. Loaded Gun in the Closet
Heathens Live at Flicker Bar, Athens, GA - June 20, 2002:
1. Flicker Heathens (intro)
2. Do It Yourself
3. Careless
4. The Deeper In
5. Sink Hole
6. Hell No, I Ain’t Happy
7. Marry Me
8. Outfit
9. Heathens
10. My Sweet Annette
11. (Something’s Got to) Give Pretty Soon
12. Your Daddy Hates Me
13. Decoration Day
14. Loaded Gun in the Closet
15. Panties in Your Purse
16. TVA
17. Uncle Frank
18. The Living Bubba
