Jason Isbell – Southeastern

Jason Isbell had a nice voice. His guitar is in tune. This is what I like about "Southeastern." The songs are tepid and uninteresting to me. I have a friend who loves this artist and says he's great live. I fail to connect with the music.

Known for his work with Drive By Truckers, Jason Isbell’s album Southeastern was like stepping into a room I didn’t know. Time and time again I read a line such as, “Southeastern is his most gripping and most personal album to date.” So you’ve got to tell me what’s wrong with me that I don’t hear it, don’t feel it, don’t believe it, feeling that music rag critics want to offend no one, wanting everyone to succeed other than the music purchasing public, who after all, are the ones paying for these packages … so don’t the listeners deserve the truth, as it seems that entertainment reviews are the only place it’s acceptable to flat out lie.

Claiming that due to his alcoholism he remembers little from his stint with The Truckers, where aside from the song “Super 8,” is one long lamenting song after another that come off like watching the faded paper peel from the walls of that aforementioned room. There’s no curiosity here, there’s no emancipation, there’s no new vision, just beaten down songs that have no place in my life, not even on one of those early Sunday morning radio shows where they attempt to smooth over the night before. Jason goes on in other interviews to say that he’s not at all interested in recounting his long fall or his darkest moments, that this album doesn’t wallow in alcoholic squalor. Yet after even a single listen, it’s more than obvious that Isbell’s pointing his rehabilitation finger outward, saying, “The subject of these songs are about what happens when you pick yourself up.”

Well man, I feel for you and I’m glad you’ve gotten your act together, that you realize you can’t hold a bottle or smoke a joint without drinking the entire bottle and smoking the whole bag, but most of us can, and here you are, the guy who was poised at the top of the world, wanting to bring me into your submission, laying out verses as on “Live Oak” saying, “There’s a man who walks besides me, he is who I used to be,” … well from my point of view, Isbell’s doing just what he said he wasn’t going to do, attempting to turn himself into some sort of musical drugged out anti-hero. Of course Jason delights in pointing out that the song’s also a fictitious account of a pre-Civil War murderer wandering the country aimlessly, who finds both redemption and forgiveness in the company of an understanding woman. (laughing) Though truth be told the murderer is Jason, the victim is Jason and the uneasy forgiveness he manages to find is bestowed on himself … and there you have it ladies and gentlemen, a three act play with three characters all played by one man. Then there’s the number “Elephant,” where one barfly attempts to comfort another who’s dying of cancer, leaving all of the other songs to move in and out of these same filthy dark shadows.

Allow me to be as clear as I can be, “Mr. Isbell, I don’t care, you brought all of this on yourself and now you want me to refinance your world. I don’t think so.” Southeastern is slowly, purposely, methodically tugging at a hangnail that hurts so exquisitely as it’s laid back and bleeding, giving Jason a moment to exhale as he turns his insides out. All of this is not for me, I’ve had a good life because I made right choices, because I recognized my limitations and used my better judgement. Jason Isbell is all that’s wrong with Americans during these times, feeling that they can fall hard, take others down with them and that by the virtue of getting up and confessing their sins they somehow become bigger than life, an important aspect in their own re-creation, though now instead of tossing rocks at the moon, they turn in early, a worn deck of marked playing cards on their bedside table, all to avoid the ghosts who come for an endless nocturnal visitation.

Review by Jenell Kesler