As we mentioned a ways back, Patterson Hood told the Irish music blog Swear I'm Not Paul that Drive-By Truckers eighth studio album, the official followup to 2008's Brighter Than Creation's Dark, is "very much a rock album. Very melodic and more rocking than anything since disc 2 of Southern Rock Opera." Confirmed: It offers big rock anthems that feel like they were written to be formed live. Much of it was written on the road -- it has that forward momentum. The 13-song collection covers a murder of a preacher by his wife in Tennessee, the death of two loved ones (Jerry Wexler, Jim Dickinson), work/the economy, parenthood, homesickness, binge drinking, the Flying Wallendas, an awkward lap dance, and dying scenes and the clubs that housed them, but in the end it comes back to The Big To-Do itself, which Hood explains in the liner notes:

I never really was all that into the circus as a kid, but I sure was into the Rock Show, which was sort of The Circus for kids of my generation. I went and wanted to join. I've been living on the road for much of the last two decades. I get tired and burned out, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. The Big To-Do.

Hood's words add something, for sure. In addition to the liner notes, he wrote song-by-song descriptions. Take a look at his thoughts on "This Fucking Job." Sure, it's meaning's pretty transparent via the title alone, but it involves more than just the present.

Sony stepped in it this time. NME reports on a Twitter-spat (aka twat) Kapranos is having with his U.S. label Epic, owned by the Sony corporation, who licensed one of Franz Ferdinand's tracks to the McDonald's site latenightmcdonalds.com (the site's been blocked for now) without the band's consent. (To be clear, the ire is directed at the culprits at Epic; FF's U.K. label Domino wasn't involved.) "Dirty bastards. Stupid arrogant motherfucking pig-brained arseholes. I'd rather eat a cow-pat on a bun than a bloody McDonalds," reads one tweet; "This is an example of how a band falls out with their US label. Did they think we'd approve this shit?" reads another.

True. It's one thing to license without consent, it's another for the illicit sellout to be in favor of a product so markedly at odds with a band's character. For one, Alex is a published foodie, penning the gustatory travel diary Sound Bites. Further, it's highly likely Epic was aware Alex would reject such an offer out of hand, since he did just that to a similar campaign offered last year for a U.S.-based Mexican fast food chain, invoking the grossness of McDonald's in the process:

Parenthetical Girls' jangling, swiveling anthem "Evelyn McHale," which they appropriately label "Bolan-ian," gets its name and starting point from the 23-year-old woman who jumped from the Empire State Building observation deck on May 1, 1947 and was photographed immediately after by Robert Wiles in beautifully serene repose atop a crushed car. It's the opening track on the first of five limited-edition 12" EPs that will eventually make up the Portland band's fourth album Privilege, which follows 2008's more orchestral Entanglements. The EPs will be sold separately in sequence (and as they were completed) over the next 15 months via the band's own Slender Means Society.

They will not be distributed to stores. As the cycle concludes in May of 2011, the fifth and final 12" will come packaged in a beautiful, aesthetically cohesive LP box designed to house all four of the preceding releases, forming the complete Privilege album.

Each 12" will feature artwork by the Swedish illustrator Jenny Mörtsell (see above) and will be hand-numbered in the blood of the core members. Fitting for this one, definitely.

Folks have been waiting a long while for Wisconsin-to-Brooklyn BTW Inlets to follow 2006's The Vestibule EP. It's not like he disappeared. There have been some stirrings. In April of '08 we posted "Your Good Arm," a song that now shows up at the end of his full-length debut Inter Arbiter. And it makes sense the collection took awhile. The one-man band recorded it at home, when he could. That, and Sebastian Krueger's ambitious, brainy, somehow simple-but-baroque compositions share a complexity of Owen Pallett or Grizzly Bear or a number of Krueger's cohorts. While working on Inter Arbiter the multi-instrumentalist collaborated with My Brightest Diamond, handled banjo for Feist on SNL, contributed to DM Stith's Heavy Ghost, worked with violinist Marla Hansen, etc. Luckily it wasn't just give give give: Inter Arbiter includes guest spots from regular cohort Zach Condon, Angel Deradoorian, and cellist Maria Jeffers and the aforementioned Hansen of the Osso string quartet. Of course, Krueger's at the front and center, regardless. See, for instance, the many-hued "Bright Orange Air," which we're told is "an ode to the psychotropic effects of municipal lighting." Truth there.

It's common for networks to cut to celebrity faces in the crowd at playoff games like last weekend's Divisional round matchup between the Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings, but FOX seemed particularly tickled by the presence of one Prince, hanging out in a skybox, surrounded by sporting-fan folk and stonefaced in his observation tower despite his home team's 34-3 blowout. Everybody I watched it with was equally amused, if only for the juxtaposed shots of beefcaked offensive lineman with this spritely extraterrestrial nymph in a fashion-forward black jacket. But it's not so odd when you think about it: Prince did play the Super Bowl. And because, purple. Vikings paraphernalia wouldn't clash in Prince's home one bit, and that's probably a pretty important litmus test for fandom when you call your home Paisley Park. Moreover Prince and Brett Favre regularly do things with their bodies that make younger men (and women) blush. This all just makes sense.

Somewhat odder although no less amusing is "Purple & Gold," the fight song Prince has written and recorded for his beloved Purple Ones. He wrote it after watching them rout Romo, telling the Minnesota AP News it was the first time he'd seen the Vikings play in years and that afterward he "saw the future." And the future is contained in this song, which is less Super Bowl Shuffle and more along the lines of a Kingdom Hall hymnal. "Raise every voice and let it be known in the name of the purple and gold."

The veiled, aesthetically rigorous NYC disco crew has announced its full-length debut Voluspa, out 4/26 on Brille. Hear a bit of the single "Hide Me" and watch a lovely mountain climb at thegoldenfilter.com.