Jason Isbell unplugged can still electrify.
An excellent bandleader, guitarist and singer, Isbell is first and foremost a songwriter, and that skill takes center stage on his new album, “Foxes in the Snow,” which will be released Friday. It’s Isbell’s first solo acoustic album, and his first album since 2013 without his band, the 400 Unit.
Accompanied by only his 1940 Martin acoustic guitar, Isbell sorts through romantic relationships. He sounds like someone trying to find his bearings. There’s blood on the tracks.
That’s not surprising given that the album is Isbell’s first since his breakup with singer-songwriter Amanda Shires after more than a decade of marriage. Some of the material sounds powerfully autobiographical, and that’s especially true on the chorus of “Gravelweed.”
“I was gravelweed and I needed you to raise me / You couldn’t reach me once I felt like I was raised,” he sings. “And now that I live to see my melodies betray me / I’m sorry the love songs all mean different things today.”
Yes, the 2013 fan favorite “Cover Me Up,” written for Shires, does sound different now.
Isbell sings about dangerous memories, dreams forgotten, the value of persistence, and the tug of his Alabama roots. “Ride to Robert’s” pays tribute to one of downtown Nashville’s best honky-tonks, while “Open and Close” skewers a bar band for mangling Steely Dan. (That’s something he knows a little something about; Isbell spent a formidable stretch in a Steely Dan cover band.)
Rich, lean language and imaginative turns of phrase are Isbell’s specialty. “I hope they’re grading on a curve,” he sings. “Forever is a dead man’s joke.” And later, “You thought the truth was just a rumor.” All three come from just one song, “Eileen.”
Isbell is a terrific acoustic guitarist, and his playing here is subtle and superb. A Doc Watson-style riff provides the foundation for the title cut, while nifty filigrees augment the waltz “Open and Close” and the opener “Bury Me,” which sounds like a cowboy song from the ’50s. That’s the 1950s, or 1850s.
In a brave experiment, Isbell is touring solo, testing whether or not these sturdy but sober songs are enough to hold the attention of several thousand spectators. At the moment, he’s not in the mood to stomp and holler.
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