Even the band was surprised by the success of Go-Go Boots, the smuttier, spacier follow-up to “big rock record” The Big To-Do, recorded during the same sessions. Go-Go Boots opens with “I Do Believe,” which begins, like Pizza Deliverance and Decoration Day before it, with an a cappella vocal by Hood, before launching into an ever-modulating song of familial love. The lyrics masterfully conjure time and place with references both specific (“Percy Sledge on the radio”) and universal (the healing effect of the ocean on “scraped-up knees”). An earnest cover of Eddie Hinton’s “Everybody Needs Love” may have added many new names to the band’s mailing list, but it is the original songs here that shine brightest. Hood in particular steals the show: added to his growing collection of “unscrupulous clergymen” songs are the keening and bluesy title track and the noir & B churn “The Fireplace Poker,” sequels in a sense to The Big To-Do’s “The Wig He Made Her Wear.” Even better is “Used To Be A Cop,” a palm-muted, slow burn of a song whose musical tension mirrors the paranoia of the song’s protagonist. Go-Go Boots also finds the band tipping their hats to influences beyond Muscle Shoals: “Mercy Buckets” is the album’s “Miracle Mile,” a sweet-not-sappy love pledge that generously offers to become an accessory to murder, while Cooley’s vaguely ominous “Pulaski,” long a bootleg staple, reminds us of country music’s long tradition of ultra-grim narratives from “Ruby Don’t Take Your Love To Town” to “(Margie’s At) The Lincoln Park Inn.” The excitement only dips during Tucker’s two contributions, which do show improvement over the feckless Fleetwood Mac imitations on The Big To-Do, but still stand in stark, unforgiving contrast beside even Hood and Cooley’s lesser contributions. Barring this, Go-Go Boots is a superb album, one on which most bands would be happy to hang their reputation. Magnificently, it doesn’t even make the band’s top three.