Patterson Hood says "spirits are high" among he and his fellow Drive-By Truckers, and really, why shouldn't they be? In the course of recording their eighth studio album, 'The Big To-Do,' due out March 16, the Truckers found themselves on a hot streak, cutting a whopping 33 tracks.

"And that's whittling it down," Hood, leader of the long-running Athens, Ga., sextet, tells Spinner. "That's still leaving behind the ones that I didn't think were quite there enough to present to the band. So, it's been a fun time."

The group has been so prolific, in fact, that 2010 could see the release of yet another Truckers full-length.

"We've got a new record in the can that's, like, 90 percent finished," Patterson says, adding that the band has already given the disc a title: 'Go-Go Boots.'

Whereas 'The Big To-Do' is a rocking, riff-heavy, back-to-basics album -- a conscious reaction to 2008's more meandering 'Brighter Than Creation's Dark' -- 'Go-Go Boots' will find Hood and company moving in other directions.

"It's really different," the singer and guitarist says. "It's the polar opposite, which helped. Instead of having it all be on one album, I've got the other record where the other stuff goes. I kind of refer to it as our R&B murder-ballad record."

Upon hearing the album's title, Wes Freed, the Virginia-based artist who has painted the bulk of the Truckers' album covers, was "really excited," Hood says. A noted film buff who knows full well how music and images can strengthen and complement each other, Hood says he looks forward to seeing what Freed comes up with for his latest batch of tunes.

"They're little movies that just don't have movies attached," Hood says of his songs. "Someday, maybe they might. That would be something. I would love, at some point, to expand into that once we get to the point we know how and can do it well."