Jason Isbell’s seventh album, Reunions, came out in May 2020 in the early days of Covid. Its air of melancholy nostalgia proved a perfect soundtrack for those uncertain times.

Recorded once again with The 400 Unit, the album finds Isbell digging into his past. “There’s ghosts all over the record,” he said in an interview. “That’s why I called it Reunions, because that’s what a ghost is: reuniting with somebody long enough for them to tell you what you missed the first time around.”

Isbell writes about friends he’s lost, about childhood memories, about his hard path to sobriety, about his wife and his daughter. This is his most personal album and one of his best (somehow, more than half of his albums are “one of his best”).

If I have one nitpick, it’s that the otherwise great opening song ‘What’ve I Done to Help’ stretches to nearly seven minutes through the repetition of the title phrase. It’s the album’s only misstep.

Closing track ‘Letting You Go’ is a personal favorite. It finds him imagining the day his young daughter will grow up and leave home. “It’s easy to see that you’ll get where you’re going,” he sings. “The hard part is letting you go.” I posted that tear-jerker when my oldest daughter turned 18.

‘Dreamsicle’ is another standout. In this one, he reminisces about a childhood saddled with frequent moves and an unreliable father, painting memories that are sad but oh so beautiful.