Continuing my Jason Isbell deep dive…

The gateway album for a favorite artist (the first work of theirs you hear) always holds a special place. Often it ends up being my favorite release. In the case of Jason Isbell, that album was 2017’s The Nashville Sound.

This record came to my attention after the track ‘If We Were Vampires’ showed up at #20 on the year-end Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll. The album showed up at #5 on the publication’s albums list.

In my post, I wrote that I expected a bro-country song — having never heard of Isbell — and was surprised by the “spare, acoustic beauty” I heard. It ended up being my favorite discovery from that year-end wrap-up.

I promptly downloaded the album and found that ‘If We Were Vampires’ was far from the only gem it contained. Back with The 400 Unit, Isbell delivers a cycle of smart, muscular alt-country peppered with gorgeous acoustic ballads. I prefer the latter, but everything here is stellar.

The critical attention, and the success of ‘If We Were Vampires’ (which won a Grammy and an Americana Music award), made this Isbell’s highest-charting and top-selling album to date.

Isbell and wife Amanda Shires had a daughter between the previous album and this one, and a couple of these songs address her directly. Others reflect on the election of Donald Trump and everything that signaled about the American people.

‘White Man’s World’ brings those topics together, as Isbell bemoans the racist patriarchy but holds out hope that his daughter will grow up to make a difference.

‘Something to Love,’ the album’s final track, is a more optimistic message to his daughter, an upbeat lullaby on which Isbell admits he doesn’t “quite recognize the world [she] call[s] home” but believes she will find a way to thrive.