Occasional Albums Thing 024 - Jason Isbell “Foxes In The Snow”

For his 10th studio album (9th if you don’t count the covers album “Georgia Blue”) Jason Isbell at last delivers a solo acoustic record. I’ve pointed out before that JI is not only a great songwriter but also a superb guitarist. The bits of his playing that I really enjoy are his acoustic performances so this promised to be a real treat.

“Foxes In The Snow” was recorded over 5 days in New York’s famed Electric Lady Studio at the end of 2024. This is as stripped back as stripped back gets. All of Isbell’s solo albums since he left the Drive-By Truckers (other than the first, “Sirens Of The Ditch”, which was almost a Truckers album so many of them played on it!) have featured some incarnation of his formidable band, The 400 Unit (credited or not). This time it’s purely Isbell’s voice and acoustic guitar (his beautiful 85 year old Martin 0-17) all the way and, seemingly, no overdubs.

Jason Isbell’s music, since his breakthrough album “Southeastern” in 2013, has been defined by two things, his sobriety, following years of hard drinking and substance abuse, and his relationship with Amanda Shires. They met in 2011, she was part of the intervention that got him into rehab in 2012, she joined his band and he wrote for hers, many of Isbell’s songs since then have been inspired by their relationship (his muse ?) and their daughter (“If We Were Vampires”, “Save The World”, “Traveling Alone” and the incredible “Cover Me Up” spring immediately to mind). So to hear at the end of last year that they were to be divorced was sad to hear. Which begs the question, is this a divorce album ?

Well in places yes of course it is. “Gravelweed”s chorus of “I was a gravelweed, and I needed you to raise me, I'm sorry the day came when I felt like I was raised” seems pretty obvious if you know about Isbell and Shire’s history. “Good While It Lasted” obviously addresses something gone “And all that I needed was all that I had, It was good while it lasted”.

Isbell’s playing is superb throughout. “Ride To Robert’s” has hints of Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” about it, as does the whole album inasmuch as it’s one man and a guitar recorded up close, giving the feeling the performer is right there in the room with you at times. “Eileen”s chorus tugs at the melody line from Stevie Wonder’s beautiful “I Believe (When I Feel In Love It Will Be Forever)”. Elsewhere the songs conjure up the spirit of Townes Van Zandt and a sometimes angry, solo Steve Earle.

The final 4 songs on Side 2 get to the heart of what “Foxes In The Snow” is about. “Crimson And Clay” is a song for Alabama, a place to where the protagonist retreats when things aren’t going so well “Guess the city didn't 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”. “Good While It Lasted”, on initial listening, is my favourite song on this record. A superb melody and lyrics that leave you wondering what was good, the togetherness or the separation, when the lyric I quoted above is soon followed by “And for a minute in the afternoon, I almost didn't think of you, It was good while it lasted”. “True Believer” swings between anger and regret, from “All your girlfriends say I broke your fucking heart, and I don't like it” through to “So when we pass on the highway, I'll smile and I'll wave, And I'll always be a true believer, babe”. The record ends on “Wind Behind The Rain” that acts as part apology, part statement that if you ever need me I’ll be here “I love you like the ocean loves the silver moon, Like Frank and Jesse loved the train, If you leave me now, I'll just come running after you, I'll be the wind behind the rain”.

The great David Crosby said of Jason Isbell, after he sang harmony on Isbell’s “What’ve I Done To Help” in 2022, “Jason has become one of the best writers in the country, and my idea of really good writers is Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan”. Now I’m not placing Jason Isbell in that exalted company, but little be it for me to argue with Mr. Crosby, so I’ll say I haven’t heard anyone else from the US who has produced a body of work like his over the last dozen years or so outside of Bruce Springsteen. I won’t apologise for quoting big chunks of lyrics here because they are so important to what Jason Isbell does. Yes he’s written a couple of couplets that are real clunkers but he’s never less than brutally honest about himself.

“Foxes In The Snow” is a stellar set of songs that doesn’t get maudlin or “woe is me”, which would have been easy considering the writers current personal situation and his past honesty in his songs. It feels significant that his first album post divorce also divorces him from his band, this is singer stripped bare and alone, in music as in life. The playing is right up my street and the album absolutely flies by when you listen to it (the whole thing clocks in at under 40 minutes). It’s always a good sign to me when I’m forced to play a record again immediately cos I didn't get eough first time through.

Jason Isbell sets out on a new path now. The opening verse of “Gravelweed” sums up where he’s been at since he met Amanda Shires:

I wish that I could be angry, punch a hole in the wall
Drink a fifth of cheap whiskey and call and call and call
But that ain't me anymore, baby, never was, to tell the truth
I just saw it in a movie and thought that's what I was supposed to do

That meeting led to him reaching the musical heights that I’d been expecting since he left the Drive-By Truckers but he’d never quite reached. Sobriety, marriage and his daughter have been central to Isbell’s writing ever since. He still has two of those pillars to lean on but this feels like a pivotal moment for Jason Isbell. I don’t know him but feel like I do as he’s bared so much of himself in his songs. I wish him well in his new reality.

Good While It Lasted - https://youtu.be/VuxfsrVs0ME?si=VeX6Da6EMN4CTbIZ