Like most forms of storytelling, songwriting is both an art and a vocation. To reach the highest levels it may help to have some innate talent, but more than anything it takes practice and focus, the willingness to open yourself up, and the determination to keep honing your skills day by day, song by song. <\/p>\n
Further evidence of all of the above showed up in my CD player (yep, physical music that actually rewards the artist for their work) recently in the form of Jason Isbell\u2019s 2011 album Here We Rest<\/i>. If we were representing the ascendancy of Isbell as one of his generation\u2019s greatest songwriters on a graph, this album would reside somewhere around the halfway mark of the steadily rising line. While his first two solo albums after leaving the Drive-By Truckers, 2007\u2019s Sirens of The Ditch<\/i> and 2009\u2019s self-titled, contain a number of solid tunes, by the time of Here We Rest<\/i>, he\u2019d clearly leveled up his songwriting chops to a higher standard. <\/p>\n
The principal highlights of this set are three. Kickoff track \u201cAlabama Pines\u201d sets a memorable scene to a loping country-rock beat, a detailed roadmap of Isbell\u2019s home turf that paints a picture full of both longing and damning self-knowledge: \u201cIf you pass through on a Sunday, better make a stop in Wayne \/ It\u2019s the only liquor store open north and I can\u2019t stand the pain \/ Of bein\u2019 by myself without a little help on a Sunday afternoon\u2026 Somebody take me home through those Alabama pines.\u201d <\/p>\n
Soon after, the acoustic-but-densely-arranged \u201cCodeine\u201d offers up a dark story-song wrapped around an indelible hook. \u201cIf there\u2019s one thing I can\u2019t take \/ It\u2019s the sound that a woman makes \/ About five seconds after her heart begins to break,\u201d he sings as guest fiddler\/harmony vocalist (and future wife) Amanda Shires lights up an otherwise rather shambling back-porch jam.<\/p>\n
Speaking of shambling, the roadhouse boogie shuffle \u201cNever Could Believe\u201d does it in style as the entire 400 Unit\u2014Chad Gamble (drums), Derry DeBorja (keys and accordion), Browan Lollar (guitar) and Jimbo Hart (bass)\u2014throws a party behind the boss. In this particular case, the lyric is nothing special, but the music is a blast.<\/p>\n
In between and all around, Isbell dips his musical toes in heavy blues-rock (\u201cGo It Alone\u201d), upbeat country rock (\u201cStopping By\u201d) and a pair of serious-minded ballads (\u201cWe\u2019ve Met\u201d and \u201cDaisy Mae\u201d). Toward the end, he delves deeper into the blues with the r&b flavored \u201cHeart On A String\u201d and the subtly gospel-influenced \u201cSave It For Sunday.\u201d Neither is outstanding, but both offer cool examples of Isbell stretching out his core Americana sound in interesting ways. \u201cTour Of Duty\u201d wraps things up with a lilting acoustic jam supporting a rather melancholy story-song.<\/p>\n
For all the evidence of improvement, this album is today mostly a stepping-stone in Isbell\u2019s catalog, an album full of stories about others that barely touches on the kind of lacerating self-reflection that made his 2013 breakthrough Southeastern<\/i> and its successors so remarkable. On Here We Rest<\/i> he\u2019s still looking outward, describing the world around him and the foibles of others; he hasn\u2019t yet blossomed into the epic confessional songwriter he is today. Still, he\u2019s begun to polish his songs like stones, creating moments and characters that are growing deeper and richer, more resonant and multifaceted, verse by artful verse. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10037],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-45592","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jason-isbell-and-the-400-unit","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45592","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=45592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45592"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}