Reviewing this album gives me a case of the icks, the eews. I don\u2019t believe I need to know anything about an artist\u2019s personal life\u2014what they\u2019ve done, what kind of person they are\u2014and those kinds of reviews tend to anger me. The only question that really matters is, is the music any good?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The latest Jason Isbell album can be listened to for what it is, which is immersive, beautiful acoustic singer-songwriter magnificence. On that level it is a top 10 album candidate for 2025. Isbell took an old Martin guitar into a studio for four days and recorded this entire album with nothing but him, his guitar playing, his feel for melody and turns of phrase that are masterful. Every word of every lyric comes across crystal clear, hiding nothing.<\/p>\n
My first time listening to Foxes in the Snow<\/i>, I was grateful.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never been a big fan of Isbell\u2019s band The 400 Unit, nor am I an acolyte of his Drive-By Truckers phase. \u201cElephant\u201d was always my Isbell standard, and on first listen to the new release I said to myself, \u201cJeez, he\u2019s finally surpassed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, I relistened\u2026 perhaps too many times.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The new release is a song novel (short story) about his divorce with Amanda Shires. Listening casually the first time around, I didn\u2019t get that. It is also a cycle that (likely from his perspective) is a confrontation with his recovery from addiction, and his struggles both pre- and post-addiction with love and commitment.\u00a0 I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, because recovery and how that plays into loving relations, is dang hard. Really hard.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
That said, Foxes In The Snow<\/i> is a one-sided story of navigating the conjunction of sobriety and love, and I don\u2019t think he comes out on the best end of that story. (His story.) And weirdly, it matters to me, because it makes me worried about his ongoing recovery and angers me in terms of what he appears to be asking others in his life to forgive him about.<\/p>\n
The first two songs, \u201cBury Me\u201d and \u201cRide to Robert\u2019s\u201d are pre-Shires, or during meeting her. \u201cBury Me\u201d starts as an a capella hymn, then transitions into straightforward country, letting us know that Mr. Isbell is setting the stage that the album is both gospel and roots-based, for him.\u00a0 It\u2019s a beautiful song, with this wonderful lyrical quatrain:<\/p>\n
I don’t say things that I don’t mean
And you’re the best thing I’ve ever seen
You can have my money if you spend your own
Well, I’m still running but I’m not alone<\/i><\/p>\n
That quatrain shifts and morphs through two variations. The song represents a bottom for Mr. Isbell; he starts the album at his bottom, after getting sober, which may seem like an oxymoron.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cRide to Robert\u2019s\u201d features just gorgeous, beautiful guitar work. Mr. Isbell was originally brought into Drive-By Truckers for his guitar playing. As an acoustic guitar player myself, the intricacy of his playing astounds. Lyrically, it seems obliquely about falling in love, after sobriety.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The next two songs are the core of this album, and they are devastating. \u201cEileen\u201d is a big jump-cut to the divorce. We\u2019re right in the midst of it when Mr. Isbell has another primal quatrain:<\/p>\n
Eileen, you should’ve seen this coming sooner
Do I mean to be alone for all my days?
Eileen, you thought the truth was just a rumor
But that’s your way <\/i><\/p>\n
He\u2019s telling Eileen that it\u2019s her fault she couldn\u2019t envision what was coming, and that his recovery from addiction means that he couldn\u2019t \/ shouldn\u2019t be held accountable for the fact that he\u2019s fallen out of love. Somehow, this is Eileen\u2019s problem.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cGravelweed\u201d may be the most central center of gravity of this album-story.\u00a0 Mr. Isbell is now beyond the initial emotional upheaval of a divorce with someone who has devoted years helping him through his process of growth, and delivers another telling quatrain:<\/p>\n
I was a gravelweed and I needed you to raise me<\/i><\/p>\n
I’m sorry the day came when I felt like I was raised<\/i><\/p>\n
And now that I live to see my melodies betray me<\/i><\/p>\n
I’m sorry the love songs all mean different things today<\/i><\/p>\n
It\u2019s honest, and I suppose Mr. Isbell can be complimented about his self-awareness. But there is not a whit of gratefulness in this, nor in \u201cEileen,\u201d that I can see\u2014it\u2019s all about Mr. Isbell\u2019s solipsistic journey.<\/p>\n
The next song, \u201cDon\u2019t Be Tough\u201d moves on. It is likely the only song from this album that I\u2019ll keep listening to for years to come. It seems to be a song for the daughter of his marriage with Shires. It is kind, it is gentle, and it is sharp about preparing an offspring for vicissitudes and challenges, with the constant refrain \u201clet love knock you on your ass.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The remaining songs are the aftermath of the divorce. \u201cOpen And Close\u201d opens with a beautiful guitar arpeggio for a few bars that made me think about \u201cFlight Of The Butterfly\u201d: we\u2019re in new musical and emotional terrain. He\u2019s moving on; he\u2019s met someone new. He\u2019s happy again:<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s tea on the table
A dog in my lap
And I might be capable of taking a nap
In this New York apartment
Peace in the eye of the storm
It\u2019s so warm<\/i><\/p>\n
In \u201cFoxes In The Snow\u201d, he\u2019s back in love. My guess is that at some point in the future a few of us may even put this song on our own wedding soundtracks. He loves everything about a new person he has met, he loves things about himself (\u201cI love my mouth\u201d) that are new to him. Good for him\u2014but by now, he\u2019s lost me. I keep wanting him to take some post-sobriety responsibility.\u00a0 (Side note:\u00a0 Mr. Isbell has said in recent interviews that the divorce was about \u201cwork-life balance.\u201d\u00a0 Nothing on this album suggests that.)<\/p>\n
\u201cCrimson and Clay\u201d is a deep recall of Isbell\u2019s roots, suggesting that he now treasures his Alabama upbringing in ways he\u2019s never realized before.\u00a0 But he continues to blame others (\u201cthe city\u201d) for how he is right now, taking no responsibility:<\/p>\n
Guess the city didn\u2019t kill me after all
The thing that nearly took me out was loneliness and alcohol
And I just put it down and walked away
And crawled back to the crimson and the clay<\/i><\/p>\n
Skipping ahead, we get to \u201cTrue Believer.\u201d After reflecting on his childhood, his divorce, and his song for his child, Mr. Isbell is back to ruminating about the divorce, and feeling very sorry for himself, and pretty sure that somebody else is responsible.<\/p>\n
All your girlfriends say I broke your fucking heart, and I don\u2019t like it
There’s a letter on the nightstand I don’t think I\u2019ll ever read
Well, I finally found a match, and you kept daring me to strike it
And now I have to let it burn to let it be<\/i><\/p>\n
He is very contented with this\u2014he\u2019s right, and everybody else is wrong. This bothers me, given how the entire album invites the audience into thinking about and judging his personal life. It\u2019s still a beautiful song, as long as you project it into your own space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWind Behind The Rain,\u201d the last song on the album, is gorgeous, which is so frustrating. But please, enjoy, because as we know, music reviewers largely suck, and are always wrong.<\/p>\n
Every song on this album is beautiful. If you love to hear Mr. Isbell stripped down to just a single acoustic guitar, and his lyrics\u2014something some of us have been waiting on for a very long time\u2014just love this album without all of this background and interpretation. Just don\u2019t focus too much on the personal stuff that he\u2019s covering here, because it doesn\u2019t paint a pretty picture. My story, sticking to it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":35216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10252],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-47100","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jason-isbell","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47100","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\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47100"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}