Thy Burdens is an homage to the intense, sublime music of the church that means so much to the musicians who worked on it. Musically it’s snarling country-soul with horns, shouting and a lot of groove. The songs vary between the evergreen and the obscure. Represented here are tributes across the landscape: Thomas Dorsey, Martha Carson, Snooks Eaglin, Ralph Stanley, The Zion Travelers, Leon Payne, The Dixie Hummingbirds, Hank Williams, Odetta, Dylan, and traditionals that are too old to credit.

The project was spearheaded by Drive-By Truckers’ bassist Bobby Matt Patton who cut his teeth playing in fiery Pentecostal church bands around north Alabama, and Morgan Geer (Drunken Prayer) who learned most of the hymns they recorded from his great grandmother in Mobile, AL.

"If it's been left up to guys like us to spread the good news, something has gone wrong."

This started when Bobby Matt met Morgan at a shared gig in Chapel Hill, NC, where they found themselves instant friends and kindred spirits. After talking for a while the idea for this album was born. The inspiration, other than purely rocking the hell out, was a pull to get to the core values of the old songs. The incontrovertibly true and inconceivably vast principles of kindness, right and wrong, and social justice: Cosmic Gospel.

Thy Burdens was recorded at Dial Back Sound, Patton’s studio in Water Valley, MS. It’s a former parsonage to the church next door, and formerly the private studio of Fat Possum Records' Bruce Watson. They say the kindly, murdered preacher who once lived there still walks the floors. There may be some ghosts but there’s nothing haunted about this music. It’s a joyful noise.