Jason Isbell
Foxes In The Snow
★★★★★
SOUTHEASTERN
Last October in New York City, Jason Isbell booked five days in Electric Lady Studios and recorded his tenth solo studio album in its entirety. There are solo albums and there are solo albums – since leaving the Drive-By Truckers 18 years ago solo Isbell has had backing musicians, most notably the 400 Unit, named after an Alabama hospital psychiatric ward and the nearest thing to his E Street Band. They played with him on his excellent 2023 album, Weathervanes. But this album is really solo – written, sung, and performed by Isbell alone. Just voice and acoustic guitar (his 1940 Martin 0-17) from beginning to end, and, by the sound of it, no overdubs.
There’s an intimacy to the album. At times it feels like Isbell is sitting across the room. When you take away the buttons and bells and strip a song to its essence, your focus is on this one voice and what it’s telling you – stories of himself, or some other character, or both, with some of the best lyrics around.
There are 11 new songs here – all of them nigh-on flawless – about love, loneliness, sex, toughness, sobriety, New York, Alabama, more love, words of wisdom, dangerous memories, the mysterious woman in Open And Close and the blood-dripping friends of the enigmatic, golden-haired girl in the lovely folk Americana title-track.
“Jason,” David Crosby said in 2022 when he sang harmony on Isbell’s What’ve I Done To Help (on his seventh album, Reunions), “has become one of the best writers in the country, and my idea of really good writers is Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan.” Listening to Open And Close halfway through this album – set in a small New York room with a fake fireplace and with another of those mystery women – brought Paul Simon’s storytelling skills to mind. At other times, the songs conjure up Townes Van Zandt and a stark, solo Steve Earle.
“His singing is emotional,” Crosby added. “It’s honest. He’s really trying to tell you the story.” That was never more true than it is here. There’s a feeling of truth (Good While It Lasted). As to Isbell’s voice, it improved considerably around the same time that his songwriting leapt up a level with 2013’s Southeastern – his fourth solo album and first since getting sober. Lauded by music critics, it’s still Isbell’s best – until this one.
Foxes In The Snow – a shoo-in for Isbell’s seventh Grammy – has already set the bar for best Americana album of the year.
Foxes In The Snow is out March 7 on Southeastern.
ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
TRACKLIST
Bury Me
Ride To Robert’s
Eileen
Gravelweed
Don’t Be Tough
Open And Close
Foxes IN the Snow
Crimson And Clay
Good While It Lasted
True Believer
Wind Beneath The Rain
Get the definitive verdict on all the months’ essential new albums, reissues, music books and films only in the latest issue of MOJO. More info and to order a copy HERE!
