If I was forced to choose a favourite Jason Isbell album I’d be struggling to choose between this one or the next, so please don’t force me. This was the album where I locked in with him again, where I thought “finally, he’s done it”. There is not, to my mind, a song out of place on this album (or its follow up).

Finally the 400 Unit as we know them today are all assembled on “Something More Than Free”. Isbell obviously, Sadler Vaden (guitar), Jimbo Hart (bass), Derry deBorja (keyboards), Amanda Shires (fiddle) and Chad Gamble (drums). Why they aren’t credited here is another mystery.

We start with “If It Takes A Lifetime” a song about a working man who seems not too far removed from Jason Isbell, doesn’t drink (now) keeps his head down and works hard following some hard times but knowing that eventually things will come good for him

“Well I got too far from my raisin’, And I forgot where I come from, And the line between right and wrong was so fine

Well I thought the highway loved me, But she beat me like a drum, My day will come if it takes a lifetime”

“24 Frames” has also become a staple of 400 Unit live shows, a scene by scene look at a relationship, it’s unpredictability and the pitfalls along the way, 24 frames being the speed being the speed film runs at so the human eye can process it, clever huh ? “Flagship” is a delicate acoustic ramble through people watching at a smalltown hotel as a comparison to his relationship (with Amanda Shires ?); “The Life You Chose” is a look at smalltown Kentucky life and asks the question (again ?) are you here because you want to be or…

“Children Of Children” is one of Isbell’s highlight songs live, a song about the writers parents who had him when they were both teenagers. In interviews he’s confessed to a “guilt that I’ve always felt about coming into the world at a time when my parents were very young and not necessarily prepared for it” which could hardly be said to be his fault. During the tour to support “Something More Than Free” it became a centrepiece of the set with Isbell going off on extended guitar solo’s, which yes I’ve confessed to not liking much but this one was the first time I realised what a superb player he is.

“I was riding on my mothers hip, she was shorter that the corn, All the years I took from her just by being born”

The title song is one of my absolute favourite songs, not just by Isbell but by anyone in all honesty. The story of an ordinary working man and his troubles, joys and hopes. The lyric always puts me in mind of my brother in law, Rob, in a good way. A song about the dignity of labour, the work ethic and real people’s lives. It’s utterly beautiful

“I don't think on why I'm here or where it hurts, I’m just lucky to have the work”

After that “Speed Trap Town” lays out smalltown life and the realisation that you can leave; “Hudson Commodore” tells of "an independent lady who loves cars.”;  “Palmetto Rose” is an ode to working people trying to turn a buck in South Carolina and I’d always thought final song “To A Band That I Loved” was aimed at the Truckers but it turns out the titular band in question is Centro-Matic (no I’ve never heard of them either) about who Isbell has said “I used to ride out with them and play guitar in their band, when the Truckers weren't touring. I felt some real grief when they split up”.

Finally Jason Isbell made an album that lived up to the promise of the songs he’d contributed to the Drive-By Truckers. From here on in he’s his own person, no longer an ex-Trucker. He has his band around him, he’s sober, married and happy. There will still be bumps in the road but “Something More Than Free” confirmed (at least to me) that Jason Isbell is one of the greatest songwriters in America today.

Something More Than Free - https://youtu.be/Ph3AbR5x6Bs?si=mFyAAGudrtieGetA

It was my friend Jen from Connecticut who is responsible for my Jason Isbell obsession as it was she who first introduced me to the Drive-By Truckers all those years ago. As each solo Isbell album was released Jen would regale me with tales of going to see him live and be most put out as she raved about each solo album release and I confessed I was less than impressed with whichever release we were discussing. It wasn’t until his next release, “Something More Than Free”, that I fully bought into solo Isbell while Jen was incredulous that I didn’t think “Southeastern” was a masterpiece. I have to confess that I now realise I was wrong and almost all of this album deserves that description, it’s bloody wonderful.

Jason Isbell had been working with Amanda Shires for a number of years. She made her first appearance on an Isbell album on his previous release, “Here We Rest”. From his time in the Drive-By Truckers Isbell had been a heavy drinker of Jack Daniels and an “enthusiastic” Cocaine user. He admits he doesn’t really remember those years in the Truckers, he was usually so drunk or high. In February 2012 Shires, Isbell's manager Traci Thomas, and his friend Ryan Adams executed an intervention which led to Isbell going into rehab and getting sober. He has talked extensively and written about his now sober life, most obviously in the opening song on “Southeastern”, “Cover Me Up” with the line “I sobered up, I swore off that stuff, Forever this time” usually eliciting wild cheers at his live shows. It’s not the only time on this album he touches on his addictions and I gotta say, his sober life has improved his music greatly. In February 2013, two days after work was finished on “Southeastern” Amanda Shires and Jason Isbell were married. 

Side one of “Southeastern” is almost faultless. “Cover Me Up”, which I seem to be quickly bypassing, is genuinely one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard, and it’s arguably not even the best song on the album ! A gentle acoustic strum with Isbell pouring his guts into the performance. Live it is absolutely breathtaking, a quite magnificent song

“So, girl, leave your boots by the bed, We ain't leaving this room

'Til someone needs medical help, Or the magnolias bloom”

The guitars are broken out on “Stockholm” which seems to reference a specific incident in a specific city, I can only presume involving Isbell and Shires (“Once a wise man to the ways of the world, Now I've traded those lessons for faith in a girl”), with whom he duets this one like Gram and Emmylou. Track 3 “Traveling Alone” has to be about their marriage. Again he admits to his addictions (“So high the street girls wouldn't take my pay, They said come see me on a better day, She just danced away”) but most of the song concerns a realisation that the time has come for him to settle down, or…

“I've grown tired of traveling alone, Won't you ride with me?”

Cheesy ? Yes, but very, very honest.

As great as both “Cover Me Up” and “Traveling Alone” are this albums undoubted moment amongst moments is “Elephant”. It took me a long time to understand this song, to realise what everyone else seemed to hear in it except me, but once I did, oh brother does it hit hard. It’s the story of a man and a woman, he’s in love with her, she is a livewire, likes to drink, likes to get high but she’s also dying from cancer. She demands he take her home but she’s going to bed alone and he hangs around and sweeps up the hair that is falling out because of her treatment. He sees her surrounded by her family but also sees that she’s dying alone. She makes jokes about cancer when she’s drunk, he sings her classic country songs and they both “Try to ignore the elephant somehow” it’s a beautiful song, so sad but full of love, hope and kindness at the same time, which is a pretty clever thing to pull off.

“There's one thing that's real clear to me, No one dies with dignity

We just try to ignore the elephant somehow”

We then have to suffer through the utterly forgettable “Flying Over Water” (in digital format it’s one I usually skip, this albums one black mark) before Side one rounds out with “Different Days” a lovely acoustic ballad about times gone by and how the singer has changed since those times.

“And the stories only mine to live and die with, And the answers only mine to come across

But the ghost that I got scared and I got high with, Look a little lost”

Over on Side 2 “Live Oak” (“There's a man who walks beside me, It is who I used to be, And I wonder if she sees him, And confuses him with me”), ”Songs That She Sang In The Shower”, “New South Wales” and “Super 8” (“I don’t wanna die in a Super 8 Motel, Just because somebody’s evening didn’t go too well” life on the road as an addict) are more confessions of mistakes and regrets. 

“Yvette”, Isbell has said, is a companion song to “Here We Rest”’s “Daisy Mae”, both characters are the product of broken homes and the difficulties that arise from that. “Relatively Easy” (“You should know compared to people on a global scale, Our kind has had it relatively easy”) ends things on a vaguely optimistic note.

I don’t know why suddenly the 400 Unit go missing from the credits, maybe because only three fifths of what we know now as the 400 Unit are on here (Amanda Shires, drummer Chad Gamble and Derry DeBorja on keyboards) but after 2 albums with them it seems a bit sudden to lose them, maybe they just weren’t considered a full band at this point. Whatever the reason, Isbell crafted an almost perfect set of songs (again “Flying Over Water” has no place here) that, granted, took me some years to appreciate fully. The whole record is painfully personal, full of regret and confessional in places. These are songs of, from and about him and his place in the South and among its people. The songs touch on their triumphs, their losses, their miseries, regrets and a fair old bit about Isbell’s hazy past and how he now hopes to live a better life.

From now on a sober Jason Isbell is on an upward path. If you were to start anywhere with Jason Isbell any one of “Southeastern” or the following 2 albums would be the thing to dive into.

Elephant - https://youtu.be/fS8ohtu_LBA

Up until now I considered that Jason Isbell’s solo career hadn’t lived up to the promise he’d shown as a member of the Drive-By Truckers (for reasons I’ve laid out earlier). “Here We Rest” is where Jason Isbell starts to get into his stride. It’s not perfection but contains some great songs within. We add some more pieces to the 400 Unit too as Jimbo and Derry are joined by drummer Chad Gamble and Amanda Shires on Fiddle and backing vocals. Not far to go before the 400 Unit as we know it today is in place. 

Right from the off “Alabama Pines” sets the standard. A simple tale of someone who has moved away from where he was bought up and dreams of being back home. Isbell has said it’s not necessarily the place that is important to get back to but “home” could be a place in your life when things were different/better. The song itself is a gentle country strum and was named “Song of the Year” at the 2012 Americana Music Awards, so the rest of the album had something to live up to. 

Isbell serves up songs focussed on the people of the struggling South, tales of ordinary people. “Stopping By” is about a child trying to find their estranged father; “Tour Of Duty” is a companion song to “Dress Blues” from “Sirens Of the Ditch”, Isbell has said of it “When you’re in a small town, there’s a higher percentage of people that fight overseas…I try to write about the effect the war is having on the homefront or on individuals. I do know something about that.”.

“Go It Alone” breaks out the big fat Southern guitars, “We’ve Met” and “Daisy Mae”, a beautiful song on the subject of child abuse (!), all point toward where Jason Isbell is headed. “Codeine” is a bouncy upbeat song with a jaunty, barroom country feel and some lively fiddle from Ms Shires, it’s about addiction ! Codeine is a prescription painkiller, at times used to wean Heroin addicts off their drug of choice but which is itself highly addictive. In the song Isbell’s girlfriend is strung out and “One of my friends has taken her in and given her Codeine”. Isbell writes about addiction often, he was himself an addict, and this is as strangely upbeat a song about addiction as you’re ever likely to hear.

“Never Could Believe” and the cover of George Jackson’s “Heart On A String” I could happily live without and the penultimate “Save It For Sunday” is a gentle piano led ballad to end on.

The songs are starting to come, Isbell is still finding his voice as a singer and as a writer. The 400 Unit are beginning to come together around him and I think they play an important role in Isbell’s future ability to express his thoughts in song. “Here We Rest” isn’t quite there, but it’s closer than he’s gotten up to now.

Codeine - https://youtu.be/1f7r9K7SUt4?si=wpYp_lhTM5aYVw1g