Jason Isbell - Sirens of the DitchREVIEWS
Boston Globe POP MUSIC
He'll keep on trucking, but solo
Jason Isbell's debut disc is influenced by the war, his home, and his old bandBy Siddhartha Mitter, Globe Correspondent | July 15, 2007
The Alabama band Drive-By Truckers has earned something of a cult following both for its fresh take on classic themes of Southern music and for its powerful three-guitar front line, made up most recently of Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and Jason Isbell, all native sons of the musically distinguished Muscle Shoals region. Now Isbell has gone solo, a development that has caused some alarm among Truckers fans, but that also marks a broadening of the revival and reinvention of Southern rock that DBT has heralded.
At 28, Isbell is quite a bit younger than Hood or Cooley, but he made himself essential both as a musician and as a gifted songwriter on the group's last three records. Hood and DBT drummer Brad Morgan and bassist Shonna Tucker, from whom Isbell is divorced, appear on Isbell's just-released solo album, "Sirens of the Ditch," confirming that all these splits have been amicable. Isbell is touring now with a brand-new group; they stop at T.T. the Bear's in Cambridge tomorrow.
An afternoon phone call on the eve of the tour's launch finds Isbell at a bar in Muscle Shoals, taking a break from helping to set up for the next day's gig. "I wanted to do a local show to kick off the tour," he says. Though the town is home to the legendary FAME studios, where countless soul and rock classics were once recorded, it has no large music venue, and Isbell and friends are converting a firehouse-turned-studio into a concert hall for the occasion, which has involved practical matters like getting a vendor's license.
Having to do most things yourself, in fact, is the main difference Isbell has found from his time in the Truckers. "Now I spend five or six hours a day on the computer and phone talking to my label and my booking agent," he says. "It's three times the work preparing for the tour." On the other hand, he says he's enjoying the challenge of being solely responsible for the material: "I think I made a good record. It's the same job, I feel like I have pretty much the same purpose -- write songs, record them, tour , and play."
For the most part, "Sirens" possesses neither the dense texture of classic Truckers songs nor the intricate lyrics spinning Gothic story lines of populist love and anger. Isbell has chosen a different tack. Though his songs range from the power-pop of "Try" to the swampy country soul of "Down in a Hole" and the pared-down singer-songwriter style of "Chicago Promenade," they are generally more straightforward and easily grasped than his work with the group.
They're also arguably more personal; many tell stories drawn from Isbell's childhood or family, or the lives of his circle of friends. The alt-country ballad "Dress Blues" pays homage to Matthew Conley, a Marine from Isbell's tiny hometown, Green Hill, who was killed in Iraq; from that intimate perspective, its critique of the pointlessness of the war is at once gentle and deeply cutting.
"He was a bit younger than me but I knew him in school," Isbell says of Conley. "I grew up with his wife's sister. Obviously bigger towns have their communities too, but there's a certain small-town phenomenon that goes along with the war and its cost." He says the song, which the Truckers also performed on tour last year, isn't political per se: "I have my own political beliefs -- reality has a liberal bias, as Stephen Colbert says -- but this is more of a subtle hint." That, of course, makes it all the more effective.
Isbell has noticed how the pop world has been, by and large, quiet about the current conflict. "You catch a lot of flak in the public eye for saying how you feel these days," he says. "A lot of people have forgotten that writers and artists are paid to express their opinions, that's their job." As a still relatively little-known indie artist, he says he feels more freedom to write about what's on his mind.
Of course the power of both DBT's and Isbell's lyrics resides in their describing not so much single issues like the war, but a bigger social and emotional landscape shaped by the manufacturing recession and the suburbanization of rural communities; a world where people trust neither politicians nor preachers, drift from job to job, and find crutches in drugs and alcohol. This anomie isn't uniquely Southern, but it somehow makes sense that it's taken Southern artists to give it its most forceful and poignant depictions.
One reason for that is the music: The Muscle Shoals tradition from which these acts stem blends the great American popular music styles, particularly across racial lines, to a degree that remains unparalleled. Isbell consciously draws on that heritage. "A lot of the musical and instrumental part of this record is a tribute to the music made down here," he says. "It encapsulates rock 'n' roll, country , and soul. I didn't want to make just a Southern record, but really a Muscle Shoals record."
Rodney Hall, FAME's president, confirms Isbell has captured the spirit. "Muscle Shoals is swampy, Southern, soulful music," he says. "That's basically what we look for, that's what we do. We always try to keep a thread of soul. It all goes back to the first artists to record here, who were black singers of country music. It was the start of country soul."
By recording at FAME, Isbell follows a long list of dignitaries including Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Wilson Pickett. The studio Isbell worked in, Hall says, is where Duane Allman held the first tryouts for the Allman Brothers Band. "Down in a Hole," the richest , swampiest song on "Sirens," features two iconic Shoals session musicians, keyboardist Spooner Oldham and bassist David Hood, Patterson's dad.
For all this history, "Sirens" is a contemporary album with an eclectic feel, counting among its influences, Isbell says, power pop of the 1970s, Tom Petty, and inevitably the Truckers themselves, with whom Isbell has spent most of his 20s. He's not ready to look back on his time with the group: "Not yet. I haven't had the chance. Maybe in five or six years, when life gets more quiet. I might have to take a long motorcycle trip."
The constant across the phases of his career, Isbell says, is his love of songwriting -- as good a clue as any to why he chose to go solo. "I still write the same kinds of songs," he says. "I write songs to teach myself how I feel about something."
Harp Magazine July/August 2007
Keep on Truckin': Jason Isbell and Life After the Drive-By Truckers
By Andy TennilleDespite leaving a wildly successful rock band (Drive-By Truckers), going through a painful recent divorce (from DBTs bassist Shonna Tucker) and anticipating the release of his first solo album (Sirens of the Ditch, New West), Jason Isbell appears to be the picture of calm at the moment.
“I’ve got my coffee here and a few cigarettes,” the 28-year-old Greenhill, Ala., native reports. “I’m doing all right.”
Four years in the making and recorded at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Sirens offers 11 tracks of rock, blues, pop and soul fueled by Isbell’s soaring vocal range, awe-inspiring guitar skills and rich songwriting and inspired by his reverence for the classic American music recorded minutes from his hometown.
“It’d be impossible for me not to be influenced by the soul and rock music that came out of Muscle Shoals,” he says. “I’ve studied a lot of those records pretty religiously and have a whole lot of respect for them all, but to tell you the truth, the thing that always had the biggest influence over me as far as being a musician coming from the Muscle Shoals area was really the individual people and the sense of community that musicians have down here. From really early on, a lot of the older musicians around town took me under the wing, let me sit in with their band and worked with me in the studio. That really influenced me more than the music they made way back when.”
In fact, a pair of legendary Muscle Shoals sessionmen mentors appear on one of Sirens’ key tracks, the swamp-rocking “Down in a Hole”: bass player David Hood (father of Truckers frontman and album co-producer Patterson Hood) and keysman Spooner Oldham. Isbell further dips into the region’s rich soul music heritage with the Aretha Franklin-esque “Hurricanes and Hand Grenades” and slips into folksier territory with “The Devil Is My Running Mate.” But his most poignant turns occur on “Chicago Promenade,” written about his grandfather shortly after learning of his passing, and “Dress Blues,” an homage to a childhood friend who was killed while serving in Iraq.
“The bottom line is I really want to be out on the road a lot more than those guys do right now. Me being the age that I am, I’m still pretty hungry for traveling and playing as many shows as I can play. That’s not the direction the Truckers are moving in right now. They don’t want to be on the road as much as in ’02 or ’03 and I can’t say that I blame ‘em ‘cause they’ve got kids and families. But the fact is, I still do. This is what I want to do.”
First printed in Jul/Aug 2007
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ALBUM REVIEWS
Harp Magazine
Given the litany of losers, leavers and lost lovers populating Jason Isbell’s solo debut, it’s tempting to view it through a highly personal lens; just in the last six months Isbell lost both his band (Drive-By Truckers) and his marriage (to DBT bassist Shonna Tucker). Against that backdrop, lines like “all the things that I told her/guess I didn’t say enough about me” (in the Ray Charles-like piano blues “Hurricanes and Hand Grenades”) or “last night I heard the sirens’ song/and I followed it in the ditch/oh baby, I’m just carryin’ on” (from “Grown,” a sturdy, roots-pop anthem) take on additional resonance.
Yet most of Sirens of the Ditch was recorded some time ago in Muscle Shoals with musical backing from most of the Truckers. So recent dramas aside, Sirens is more an instance of Isbell’s narrative gifts finally being given a full forum; recall how some of his best contributions to Truckers albums—The Dirty South’s “Never Gonna Change”; A Blessing and a Curse’s “Easy On Yourself”—related tales carrying both individual and universal heft. And with a song roster this tunefully diverse and memorable, from the sinewy swamp-rock of “Down in a Hole” (featuring guests Spooner Oldham and David Hood) to the incandescent, Tom Pettyesque “Shotgun Wedding,” Isbell finally gets to slip into the driver’s seat and steer.
By Fred Mills
Village Voice
Jason Isbell's Sirens of the Ditch
A Southern rocker's B-movie beatitudes smoothly lure and detourby Don Allred
July 10th, 2007 2:43 PMThe Drive-By Truckers' Jason Isbell has now gone solo, but he hadn't yet quit the band while recording Sirens of the Ditch—cut with most of the current Truckers and their regular guests, the record smoothly lures and detours familiar, '70s-based rock-blues-country sounds and expectations while highlighting Isbell's character-actor flair. "I'm a brand-new kind of actress/I'm the same old stubborn waitress," a big-bottomed gal happily agrees with a yearning heckler (who's got a gun, it turns out) on the opening tune—however far she gets, she knows she's got the kind of balancing act (plus the audacity-times-tenacity) that an actress-slash-waitress needs. As for the hero of "Try," will the blues-metal beating at the walls of his paranoia break on through, or become just another paranoid ritual? John Neff's steel guitar cuts as gently and deeply as Isbell's lyrics, each note cutting deeper into the "Dress Blues" of a wartime funeral. "Grown" flees such proprieties for (non-cheesy) memories of a playmate who "took my little hand . . . you taught me how to want something." (Another soul saved, though more recently, the narrator "heard the sirens' song/And I followed it in the ditch.") "In a Razor Town" is as spare and complex as a real-life breakup can be; on the other hand, "The Devil Is My Running Mate" puts mean, scared, human words into the mouth of a politician, so you know it's a fairy tale.
The Onion:
Jason Isbell only contributed eight songs to Drive-By Truckers during his five-year tenure with the band, but his grit and depth were always a highlight—and with Sirens Of The Ditch, he finally has a disc all his own to show off. Sporting input from his former bandmates as well as legendary keyboardist Spooner Oldham, Isbell's solo debut doesn't stray far from his Truckers work, at least at its core. Instead of gargantuan guitars and Skynyrd-style solos, however, he wraps his craggy allegories in skeletal, arid arrangements that let his twang and prose breathe. Free of clutter and the Truckers' overwhelming gravity, Sirens is the sound of a freshly liberated songwriter scouring his soul—and coming up full-handed.A.V. Club Rating: A-
Washington Post
JASON ISBELL "Sirens of the Ditch" New West
Friday, July 13, 2007AS ONE OF THE Drive-By Truckers' three primary songwriters, Jason Isbell may have seemed to be just one of that band's large cast of characters, but his solo debut, "Sirens of the Ditch," shows that his conversational songs and husky voice can stand just as effectively on their own. With "Sirens," he hasn't completely abandoned his past; Truckers members Shonna Tucker and Brad Morgan join him on bass and drums, respectively, and the band's founder, Patterson Hood, acts as co-producer.
Even with such a heavy Truckers presence, Isbell has toned town the Truckers' Southern twang in favor of a more bluesy pop sound; the booming chords of album opener "Brand New Kind of Actress" are reminiscent of Cheap Trick's power pop, while "Shotgun Wedding" shimmers with its bright chords and bouncy melodies. Those catchy pop songs might be "Sirens's" most instantly grabbing numbers, but Isbell is equally captivating in his quieter moments: The rolling, trancelike "The Magician" captures a serene road weariness, and "The Devil Is My Running Mate" recalls Josh Ritter's more melancholy songs. Isbell is at his most pensive on "Dress Blues," inspired by a classmate who joined the Marines and died in Iraq. Songs about the war seem to be sprouting faster than weeds, but Isbell's personal slant on the situation gives a powerful, sympathetic edge to an otherwise familiar theme.
-- Catherine P. Lewis
Pitchforkmedia.com (Rating: 7.4)
Orlando Sentinel (4 Stars)
MUSIC
Intimacy overlays Southern style in Jason Isbell's 'Sirens of the Ditch'
Jim Abbott, Sentinel Pop Music CriticJuly 13, 2007
Singer Jason Isbell parted ways with Drive-By Truckers this past spring, but enough of his former bandmates show up for his solo debut that Sirens of the Ditch retains plenty of DBT's Southern style.??These 11 songs aren't as cinematic as the studio material by his old band, but that vision is replaced by a leaner combination of voices and guitars that works equally fine.??The range of the songs is encompassed by the opening combination: a one-two punch of "Brand New Kind of Actress" and "Down in a Hole." The former is a harder-driving slice of traditional Southern Rock, heavy on the backbeat and big dirty guitar strumming.??"Down in a Hole" is a more evocative ballad built on acoustic guitar and slinky electric slide. When Isbell keeps the heat on simmer, it's actually a better showcase for his smoky tenor. That voice is well-suited to lyrics that feature rewarding turns of phrase such as his description of a woman "that smells like sin."??"Down in a Hole" also spotlights the talents of Isbell's impressive supporting cast. Above the foundation provided by bassist David Hood, the song owes much of its bluesy mood to the subtle Hammond B-3 organ of Spooner Oldham, a frequent Neil Young sideman.??Isbell's studio band also includes DBT's Patterson Hood, Shonna Tucker and Brad Morgan on the tumbling rocker "Shotgun Wedding."??That's cool, but Sirens is often stronger when Isbell performs in a more solitary setting on songs such as the somber "In a Razor Town." In such moments, the album sounds like a more intimate twist on the Drive-By Truckers -- and an inspired twist, too.
Amazon.com
Guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Isbell was a driving force in the rousing postmodern Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers. Sirens of the Ditch is his solo debut. A resident of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Isbell clearly has Catholic taste in his roots rock. His backing band throws together a pleasant mélange of pedal steel, organ, strummed acoustic guitar, and heartfelt Americana vocals. At first, it sounds like something you've heard before a thousand times, by Ryan Adams or was that Bryan Adams. However, on closer inspection, there's a lot more going on. After rhyming "bitch" with "ditch" in the song "Ditch," Isbell throws in a line about "dancing to 'Purple Rain'" and you're drawn in, to a clearly delineated but poetic storyline and gorgeous melodies. Isbell's best songs will remind you of Richard Buckner, Raymond Carver, and Neil Young. "Dress Blues" might be the most sympathetic and awesome song about the Iraq war yet written. Huzzah. --Mike McGonigalCharleston Post & Courier
Sound off
BY DEVIN GRANT
Alt-country
JASON ISBELL — "Sirens Of The Ditch" — (New West)
Rating: (A-)
One of the best songs on "Sirens of the Ditch," the new solo effort by former Drive-By Trucker Jason Isbell, is "Dress Blues," which, interestingly enough, turned out to be my least favorite track on the CD.
Confused yet? Allow me to explain. Before he left DBT in April, Isbell performed that song a few times with the band, and if you know where to look online, you can find a version of the song. While incredibly dark and bare bones, the live, online rendition blows away the album version of the song.
Please don't let that minute reason keep you from picking up and enjoying "Sirens of the Ditch," though. Even the souped-up version of "Dress Blues" is braver than 90 percent of the music being released today.
Elsewhere on the CD, fans might be a little taken aback by Isbell's embracing of the power pop sound on more than a few tracks. Don't worry: There is still plenty of the DBT sound here, and several DBT members make appearances, including Patterson Hood, Shonna Tucker and John Neff.
Standout moments include "Brand New Kind of Actress," "Shotgun Wedding" and "Try."
It's a shame that Isbell is no longer with DBT, but at least in embarking on a solo career, it seems the singer-songwriter has started off on the right foot.
Download These: "Brand New Kind of Actress," "Shotgun Wedding," "Try"
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Columbus Dispatch
Sirens of the Ditch' Jason Isbell
The Drive-By Truckers recently dropped off lead guitarist Jason Isbell. The split was amicable.
The Truckers' loss is our gain: Isbell, it turns out, is a remarkable songwriter.
One might expect a song such as Try from a guy whose stinging guitar leaves marks. It's a guitar-crazy dirge about the impossibility of holding onto a woman who doesn't want to be held.
But what one doesn't expect are sophisticated (musically and lyrically) softer, slower numbers -- especially Dress Blues, a poignant reminder that young men are coming back in boxes from Iraq. The closely observed song (the grandmas and mothers who attend a military funeral are "all dressing in black / Drinking sweet tea from Styrofoam cups") conveys more sadness than anger but still has plenty of the latter.
What a brilliant solo debut.
-- B.E.
LIVE REVIEWS
JULY 19, 2007
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit @ Rock and Roll Hotel
When Jason Isbell first joined the Drive-By Truckers — just after the release of their breakthrough Southern Rock Opera — he looked a little out of place. Baby-faced and younger than founding Truckers Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, he seemed like a little brother to the other two, stepping out of their shadow to take a solo or sing lead on one of his songs.
Then came Decoration Day: the Truckers’ true coming out party, and the first indication of the band as the three-headed songwriting monster they had become. It kicked off a run of three terrific albums, God-only-knows how many marathon rock shows, and brought the band to a much wider audience. So when Isbell announced he was leaving the group this past winter, fans started to wonder how he and the band he left behind might fare.
With the Truckers playing to a sold out 9:30 Club this Friday, they’ve got quite a task ahead of themselves. For Isbell and his new group, the 400 Unit, are a force to be reckoned with. Where their first release, Sirens of the Ditch, took Isbell’s knack for evocative storytelling, twang, and guitar muscle and spun it into a polished pop record, their set Wednesday night at the Rock and Roll Hotel was simply roaring.
Two hours of blasting guitars kicked off with the bluesy, slow burn of “Down in a Hole,” before stepping up the pace with “Grown.” A cover of a Patterson Hood song (“The Assassin”) showed there were no hard feelings (Isbell later told folks to check out their show Friday), and Isbell tore into his old band’s material as the set continued. “Goddamn Lonely Love” lagged some at the beginning, but the full band pickup before the last chorus was crisp and rocking to bring the song home.
Everyone at the Rock and Roll Hotel probably had their own highlight — mine was “Dress Blues,” which has to be the most devastatingly poignant song written about the war in Iraq — but the anthemic “Outfit” got the loudest reception. Isbell teased it for a brief second, then played the first bit by himself, but the band and the crowd joined in a room-wide singalong. After a quick smoke break it was back to work with two solo numbers (one a Richard Thompson cover), before the surprises started rolling in. Jimbo Hart thumped that familiar, ominous bass part as word started circulating through the room: “Are they doing Psycho Killer?” Guitarist Browan Lollar sang a decent lead part and the band turned the slight tinge of playfulness of the original into blistering, angry guitars.
With eardrums pretty much shot and the crowd getting weary, Isbell and Co. did what his old band used to do when they sensed a lull: they chugged a lot of Jack Daniel’s and kept on going. “Try” pushed the tempo with a lurching riff and a bouncy close. Then came the encore, and if you don't regularly comb through setlists, the song selection was a surprise. First up was their take on Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" — delightful, even if Lollar didn't quite nail the lead guitar part — followed by a furious version of the Thin Lizzy classic rocker "Jailbreak" to cap off the night.
The gauntlet's officially been thrown down to the Truckers, and frankly, it's going to be awfully hard to match a set of this kind of range and performance. But enough comparisons — this night was all about Isbell and his new band. Standing right in front of the stage, you had to wonder if maybe even bigger and better things await him (for one, the day any yahoo in a cowboy hat records "Dress Blues" or "Outfit," Isbell's got a million bucks coming his way). You never like to see a great band split up, but it appears this time all parties — us included — are going to benefit.
JASON ISBELL — "Sirens Of The Ditch" — (New West)
Rating: (A-)
