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Rolling Stone review of Jason Isbell's new album + several tracks, one live song, & a video about recording this
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/jason-isbell-foxes-in-the-snow-1235286079/-snip-
On the new Foxes in the Snow, a solo album that benches his longtime backing band the 400 Unit in favor of just his plaintive voice and Martin acoustic guitar, Isbell seems to realize that not every song needs to be an opus. To be sure, there are some here — with such talent, he can’t help himself — but the majority find Isbell enjoying the well-earned freedom of writing about the everyday and not the grandly metaphorical. He discovers beauty in the mundane: cups of tea, dogs curled up in laps, sharing closet space for your partner’s shoes.
However, there is an elephant in the writing room: Foxes in the Snow marks Isbell’s first album since filing for divorce from his wife and bandmate, Amanda Shires, in 2023, and beginning a relationship with a New York painter. While he’s often prided himself on prioritizing characters in his songs (“King of Oklahoma,” “Decoration Day”), he leans hard into main-character syndrome on Foxes, with jarring results. It’s impossible to miss the allusions to Isbell’s personal life over the 11 tracks; its first single, the cowboy trail song “Bury Me,” now sounds like a misdirection.
-snip-
In the title track, Isbell goes full Elizabeth Barrett Browning, all but asking “How do I love thee?” He counts the ways by declaring love for “my love,” “her mouth,” “the way she turns the lights off in her house,” “her golden hair,” “her bite,” and “the way she disassembles me at night.”
-snip-
If the bulk of the tracks nod to Isbell’s new romance, the devastating “True Believer” seems to take stock of his high-profile broken relationship. “All your girlfriends say I broke your fucking heart,” he howls, connecting the dots with assorted lyrical clues (hearing “God in the Ryman,” the Nashville theater he played annually with Shires; comparing his stubbornness to the wine “stain on your teeth”). Despite it all, bygones are bygones, at least to him: “When we pass on the highway, I’ll smile and wave,” Isbell sings, “I’ll always be a true believer babe.”
-snip-
On the new Foxes in the Snow, a solo album that benches his longtime backing band the 400 Unit in favor of just his plaintive voice and Martin acoustic guitar, Isbell seems to realize that not every song needs to be an opus. To be sure, there are some here — with such talent, he can’t help himself — but the majority find Isbell enjoying the well-earned freedom of writing about the everyday and not the grandly metaphorical. He discovers beauty in the mundane: cups of tea, dogs curled up in laps, sharing closet space for your partner’s shoes.
However, there is an elephant in the writing room: Foxes in the Snow marks Isbell’s first album since filing for divorce from his wife and bandmate, Amanda Shires, in 2023, and beginning a relationship with a New York painter. While he’s often prided himself on prioritizing characters in his songs (“King of Oklahoma,” “Decoration Day”), he leans hard into main-character syndrome on Foxes, with jarring results. It’s impossible to miss the allusions to Isbell’s personal life over the 11 tracks; its first single, the cowboy trail song “Bury Me,” now sounds like a misdirection.
-snip-
In the title track, Isbell goes full Elizabeth Barrett Browning, all but asking “How do I love thee?” He counts the ways by declaring love for “my love,” “her mouth,” “the way she turns the lights off in her house,” “her golden hair,” “her bite,” and “the way she disassembles me at night.”
-snip-
If the bulk of the tracks nod to Isbell’s new romance, the devastating “True Believer” seems to take stock of his high-profile broken relationship. “All your girlfriends say I broke your fucking heart,” he howls, connecting the dots with assorted lyrical clues (hearing “God in the Ryman,” the Nashville theater he played annually with Shires; comparing his stubbornness to the wine “stain on your teeth”). Despite it all, bygones are bygones, at least to him: “When we pass on the highway, I’ll smile and wave,” Isbell sings, “I’ll always be a true believer babe.”
-snip-
The reviewer calls two tracks, Eileen and Gravelweed, "a pair of Jason Isbell masterpieces."
4 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
