Alabama Pines – Jason Isbell
Codeine – Jason Isbell
I used to think I liked the Drive-By Truckers. In the last several years I’ve realized that I never really did. It turns out that what I like is Jason Isbell. Most of the Truckers songs I really loved were his. And while I don’t hate the work of the others in the band, they have very few songs I come back to with any regularity.
This distinction has become blindingly clear this year, as both have released new records. The DBT record is fine, but seems very rote in its application of their existing form. On the other hand, Isbell’s Here We Rest is fantastic, full of energy and passion and pierced through with the sort of raw emotion that defines the very best of the genre.
The general theme of the album is loss. Each song offers a vignette on the subject. Sometimes the loss is positive, and often it is complicated. The loss of childhood, giving up on a broken dream, the abandonment of fear. There’s “Tour of Duty” which tells the story of a soldier returning home, and the awkwardness of coming back into the normal world of everyday life. “We’ve Met” is about meeting a long-forgotten love, and the self-reflection it demands. “Stopping By” gives us a peek into the heart of a long-absent father trying to make amends. He doesn’t ask us to fully sympathize with the father, simply wants us to see the pain of someone who knows they’ve done wrong. And “Codeine” is a tour de force, an ambling country-tinged ballad about getting dumped because someone else can get access to better drugs.
Isbell says very little that we haven’t already heard. Which isn’t the worst thing. There’s something to be said for doing something well and not worrying about trying to guss it up. In particular, Isbell’s voice is pretty limited. And the album’s best songs are the ones which work with that fact, rather than trying to step beyond his range. His weary utterance of the chorus in “Alabama Pines” (‘somebody take me home, through these Alabama pines’) is glorious for its capacity to evoke a disenchanted southern spirit. The limitation in his voice betrays a larger limitation in worldviews and possibility. And it’s perfectly counterpointed by some achingly sad guitar work.
The album’s weaker tracks fail to walk this line so well. “Heart on a String” is the sort of straightforward contemporary rock music that 30-somethings ate up in the 90s, which is a bad place to start. But then it’s combined with a terribly unfocused vocal performance from Isbell. Elsewhere, “Never Could Believe” is roots-honky-tonk-by-number. It’s not terrible, just dull. And “Daisy Mae” is just Isbell and his guitar, and verges on genuine pathos but can’t quite connect.
These few tracks aside, this is a very composed work from one of the best performers of good old fashioned country rock out there these day.