Drive-By Truckers leader Patterson Hood’s fascination with noir and true domestic crime has been hinted at broadly in his previous works, surfacing in a sympathetic sketch of a young woman jailed for committing incest with her brother (“The Deeper In” from 2003’s Decoration Day), or a horrifically detailed account of a wife driven to homicide by an abusive husband (“The Wig He Made Her Wear” from last year’s The Big To-Do). While scratching the underbelly of society is hardly an unprecedented approach to coaxing out compelling songs, it is Hood’s deft ability to tell these stories with a seamless mix of humility and fearlessness that sets him apart from the average gallows-haunting artist. He and his equally capable bandmates own that nuanced vantage point completely on Go-Go Boots, an eerie and unflinching album that draws from Hood’s obsession with a late-’80s Alabama murder case involving a preacher who hires a hit man to execute his estranged wife. With Heartless Bastards. HANNAH LEVIN

Sat., March 12, 8 p.m., 2011