ALBUM REVIEW: On ‘Weathervanes,’ Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit Prove They’re Playing the Long Game

When the chorus hits almost two minutes into “King of Oklahoma,” the second track on Weathervanes, the new Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit album, it’s like an unexpected release of tension you didn’t know you needed. It proves once again that Isbell is not only a much-heralded lyricist, but also a sharp arranger, a side often overshadowed by searing personal observations that make him one of the great songwriters of his generation.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (photo by Danny Clinch)

Isbell is a hot commodity right now. From the raw and revealing HBO documentary Running with Our Eyes Closed that debuted in April to his role in the upcoming Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon, he’s become the face of Americana. (He and his wife, Amanda Shires, were also this year’s ambassadors for Record Store Day.) But the music always comes first.

Weathervanes is Isbell’s first album of all-original material since 2020’s Reunions, released 10 years almost to the day after Southeastern, his landmark release that marked a dividing line not only between pre- and post-recovery, but also between trying to prove himself post-Drive-by Truckers as a viable, literate rocker and his emergence as a focused, personal songwriter. Throughout his career, Isbell has possessed a gift for observing and detailing characters in struggle, against family members, partners, society’s expectations, their own demons. He also understands the power of specificity as well as building drama through storytelling.

The first lines of the opening track, “Death Wish,” for example, are delivered seemingly through catharsis. The tension that built during the making of Reunions, as captured in the HBO doc, is released here, through an arrangement that densely builds with layered backing vocals and strings by Morgan O’Shaughnessy. It’s unlike anything Isbell’s done before, yet it sounds like a natural progression.

“Save the World” swaps proselytizing for empathy. Much like Bruce Springsteen’s approach on The Rising, it reaches for the common denominator that binds us as parents, as humans, as a society; how tragic and horrific events cause us to act and react in everyday life, even in such should-be-routine tasks as trips to the grocery store. The personal becomes universal.

For someone who’s been very vocal about the dangers of nostalgia, it’s interesting that Isbell, at least subconsciously, is acknowledging a couple of important career milestones. In addition to the 10-year anniversary of Southeastern, 2023 marks 20 years since the release of what some fans consider the Drive-by Truckers’ finest moment, The Dirty South, Isbell’s second album with them.

“King of Oklahoma” is one of a group of songs on Weathervanes that Isbell has labeled “the old assignment,” songs he wrote in the style of his time in the Truckers. Another is “Cast Iron Skillet,” which is particularly harrowing. In someone else’s hands, someone who may aim for mainstream country airplay, the choruses would be presented as sage advice, a type of lyrical trope expected and rewarded in such a venue. What you’d never hear on the iHeart airwaves, however, is the content of these verses, which detail violence and racism from events that Isbell witnessed in one way or another as a kid in his hometown. As the song unfolds, you realize the advice is not worth taking, no matter how confidently it’s given. It’s masterful songwriting.

One of Isbell’s most captivating melodies envelops “Middle of the Morning.” It’s also some of the finest vocal work of his career; a performance that would make Lindsey Buckingham envious. Moreover, the delivery mirrors the uncertainty, the loneliness, and the feeling of captivity the narrator is experiencing. It’s a sensation all too familiar in the 2020s, as we cautiously re-enter a somewhat normal life.

The “strong and silent Southern man” of “Middle of the Morning” has been a recurring character in Isbell’s songwriting throughout his career, and he shows up again on Weathervanes as the observer in “Strawberry Woman,” which evokes singer-songwriter Kevin Welch at his most reflective and features the unmistakable harmonica of Mickey Raphael.

Isbell’s pointed lyrical flourishes deepen even further when framed inside the inspiring Allmans-like extended guitar duel between Isbell and Sadler Vaden in the middle of “This Ain’t It” and the Crazy Horse-meets-the Heartbreakers-at-an-Abbey Road-listening-party moment that is “Miles.” Those two songs close Weathervanes and underline Isbell’s deep Southern roots, with his finger on the pulse of the present and a hopeful eye to the future.

Rather than being formed under pressure of following up previous work, Weathervanes is the sound of an exhale, a settling-in for someone who’s become a master at playing the long game.

Weathervanes, by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, is out June 9 on Southeastern Records/Thirty Tigers.