Jason Isbell is a songwriter. <\/p>\n
Yes, he\u2019s pretty damned good at the whole singing and playing thing, too, and he\u2019s got a fine, fine band in The 400 Unit, but it\u2019s clear from the first line of this superb album to the last that what he\u2019s all about is writing songs with real texture and depth and emotion and detail. The man is a born storyteller, and these songs are the tales he chooses to tell, of alienation and true love, racism and anxiety, and a desperate hope for the future that he still stubbornly clings to.<\/p>\n
Isbell\u2019s often-keening voice carries a hint of grit that lends further authenticity to these tunes, which fall into the broad category of Americana but feel genreless, rootsy songs that incorporate elements of country, folk, blues, rock and soul, in roughly that order. He\u2019s also a wonderful singer who pays attention to and invests himself completely in the phrasing of every line and every word, adding weight and resonance to each pointed observation he offers. He\u2019s supported throughout by a crack band consisting of Derry deBorja (keys), Chad Gamble (drums), Jimbo Hart (bass), his wife Amanda Shires (strings and harmony vocals), and Sadler Vaden (electric guitar), with producer Dave Cobb adding acoustic guitar and percussion.<\/p>\n
Melancholy acoustic opener \u201cLast Of My Kind\u201d weaves memories and anecdotes into a song about feeling out of place in the urban world. \u201cI couldn\u2019t be happy in the city at night \/ Couldn\u2019t see the stars for the neon lights,\u201d he sings, but it\u2019s not an angry alienation, more like a sort of wistful \u201cWhy do things have to be this way?\u201d lament. The anger, he saves for \u201cCumberland Gap,\u201d a thundering, ferocious rocker about the flip side of the same coin\u2014the alienation and despair of country life: \u201cAin\u2019t much money in the old-time mandolin \/ So I cash my check and drink \u2019til I\u2019m on my ass again \/ Maybe the Cumberland Gap just swallows you whole.\u201d But even if there was a place for him to escape to, he could never run away: \u201cI thought about moving away but what would my momma say \/ I\u2019m all that she has left and I\u2019m with her every day.\u201d <\/p>\n
The stately country-folk ballad \u201cTupelo\u201d dials back the angst, but only in the music. The lyric is again about feeling trapped and longing for escape. \u201cKept her close, way too close to me \/ She never lived up to my memory\u2026When I get out of this hole, I\u2019m going to Tupelo \/ There\u2019s a girl down there that\u2019ll treat me fair.\u201d Of all the tunes here, though, the one that\u2019s the biggest thumb in the eye of the mainstream country crowd is \u201cWhite Man\u2019s World,\u201d an edgy, powerful statement about racism and privilege. \u201cI\u2019m a white man lookin\u2019 in a black man\u2019s eyes \/ Wishin\u2019 I\u2019d never been one of the guys \/ Who pretended not to hear another white man\u2019s joke,\u201d goes one powerful verse. Ultimately, he sings, \u201cWe\u2019re all carrying one big burden and sharing one fate\u201d\u2014all in this together, in other words, and as dire as the lyric is in places, it ends with one small, bright ray of hope: \u201cI still have faith but I don\u2019t know why \/ Maybe it\u2019s the fire in my little girl\u2019s eyes.\u201d <\/p>\n
Shifting gears like a champion driver, Isbell next offers up \u201cIf We Were Vampires,\u201d a darkly humorous yet fundamentally sweet pledge of everlasting love that doesn\u2019t shy away from exploring the fear underlying that pledge: \u201cLikely one of us will have to spend some days alone \/ Maybe we\u2019ll be 40 years together, and one day I\u2019ll be gone, or you\u2019ll be gone.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fear takes center stage on the big-boned lament \u201cAnxiety,\u201d as Isbell, with an assist from co-writer Shires, acknowledges: \u201cI know I\u2019m a lucky man today, but so afraid that time will take it all away from me\u2026 I can\u2019t enjoy a goddamn thing.\u201d In one of the few missteps here, it feels like the several verses and extended outro are more than the song needs; it\u2019s 6:58 that might have been stronger at a judiciously edited 4:45. <\/p>\n
\u201cMolotov\u201d is an incongruously sunny country-rock tune about settling down and missing your younger, more reckless self, with hints of Springsteen in the lyric and echoey lead vocal. The rambling, rambunctious folk-rock tune \u201cChaos And Clothes\u201d has more than a little Dylan in its rangy, fearless lyricism, about fighting with your own nature, and the consequences: \u201cYou say love is hell but it\u2019s the ghost of love that\u2019s made you such a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hope reasserts itself in the rather Drew Holcomb-flavored \u201cHope The High Road,\u201d a tune that seems to be both a plea for reconciliation with an old friend and a diagnosis of the state of the nation post-election: \u201cI know you\u2019re tired and you ain\u2019t sleeping well \/ Uninspired and likely mad as hell \/ But wherever you are I hope the high road leads you home again \/ To a world you want to live in.\u201d The album closes with the lilting country-folk number \u201cSomebody To Love,\u201d another well-crafted shot of hope and optimism in the face of despair: \u201cI hope you find something to love \/ Something to do when you feel like giving up \/ A song to sing or a tale to tell \/ Something to love, it\u2019ll serve you well.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s good advice that Isbell himself has clearly taken to heart. Like all the ones that really matter, Jason Isbell is more than an entertainer, he\u2019s a man on a mission, who brings strong craft and total commitment to every aspect of this music: lyrics, melodies, singing, arrangements, and performances. It\u2019s early yet, but The Nashville Sound<\/i> already feels like one of the highlights of 2017, a beautifully crafted album of roots music that\u2019s unafraid to explore the darkest corners of the American soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10037],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-45033","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jason-isbell-and-the-400-unit","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45033"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}