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Avg: 4.0 (159 ratings)
- Date Released: February 17, 2009
- Genre: Rock/Pop
- Style: Rock
- Label: Lightning Rod Records / Thirty Tigers
A Drive-By Trucker steps off to the side of the road, gets contemplative
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We Say...
Jason Isbell logged nearly six years as a guitarist and songwriter for the Drive-By Truckers — in late 2001, he stepped in to replace Rob Malone, and in 2007, he stepped out to front his own band. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Isbell's second release since going solo, is crammed with all the thick, steamrolling guitar-rock you'd expect from a former Trucker. But where Isbell's old band consistently indulged (self-consciously, at times) in brash, Skynyrd-approved southern traditions — face-crumpling electric riffs, crushed cans of domestic beer, long, gnarly hair flapping in the Alabama breeze — Isbell is emblematic of a gentler, more thoughtful Dixie: Despite all the riffage, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit feels more like a folk record at heart. "Soldiers Get Strange" is about as concise of an explanation of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder we're likely to see ("It ain't the liquor that burns in your mouth / Nothing around here's changed / It's just that a soldier gets strange"), while the slow, cloudy "Cigarettes and Wine" feels like a cleaned-up Tom Waits song. Isbell might still be at the southern-rock bonfire, but now he's the guy standing off to the side, alone, smoking, leaning on a truck, and taking it all in.
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They Say...
During his time with the Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell always sported the least grizzled voice of the bunch, a surprisingly radio-ready baritone that sounded smoother than Patterson Hood's sandpaper croon and more streamlined than Mike Cooley's twang. That voice carries more weight in Isbell's solo material, where melody and lyrics are emphasized over the swaggering guitar onslaughts of his previous group. Credited to Isbell and his new backing band, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit finds the songwriter reprising the same formula showcased on 2007's Sirens of the Ditch: a mix of Southern rock and rootsy, melancholic country-soul that manages to both elevate and commiserate during its 52 minutes. The result may be fairly similar to Sirens' sound, but 400 Unit marks Isbell's final move away from the Truckers, whose influence permeated Sirens in its production (helmed by Patterson Hood) and host of backing musicians (including Shonna Tucker, DBT's bassist and Isbell's former wife). Instead, Isbell and his four bandmates close the studio doors to outside help, allowing several horn players to pepper "No Choice in the Matter" with brassy soul but chiefly controlling the album themselves. The result is a smart and tasteful record that sees Isbell training his songwriting eye on subjects of wartime romance, memory, and dead-end small towns. There are rock songs here -- including "Soldiers Get Strange" and "Good," both of which seem to take more influence from Tom Petty than Lynyrd Skynyrd -- but Isbell sounds most comfortable with the midtempo numbers, from the subdued shuffle of "Sunburn" (sample lyric: "I never meant to get bored with you but I never meant to stay") to the instrumental strains of "Coda." "I saw her in Roosevelt Springs, where time doesn't touch anything," he sings in "Cigarettes and Wine," a seven-minute homage to a bartender who takes in downtrodden men and selflessly suffers their despondence. Just barely out of his twenties, he writes with the well-worn weariness of someone twice his age, but Isbell's youth nevertheless breathes energy into a formula that's been revisited by many Southern-born songwriters before.
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| 01. |  |
Seven-Mile Island |
4:16 |
|
| 02. | |
Sunstroke |
5:15 |
|
| 03. | |
Good |
4:45 |
|
| 04. | |
Cigarettes and Wine |
6:45 |
|
| 05. | |
However Long |
4:17 |
|
| 06. | |
Coda |
2:05 |
|
| 07. | |
The Blue |
4:57 |
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| 08. | |
No Choice in the Matter |
5:30 |
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| 09. | |
Soldiers Get Strange |
4:07 |
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| 10. | |
Streetlights |
4:10 |
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| 11. | |
The Last Song I Will Write |
5:54 |
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11 Total Tracks, 52:01 Total Length
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Credits
- Charles Rose - Arranger // Charles Rose - Horn // Harvey Thompson - Horn // Benjamin Tanner - Assistant Engineer // Glenn Schick - Mastering // Matt Pence - Drums // Matt Pence - Producer // Matt Pence - Mixing // Derry Deborja - Performer // Jason Isbell - Producer // Jason Isbell - Producer // Jimmy Nutt - Engineer
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