Jason Isbell - Reunions LP

Tracklist

What've I Done To Help
Dreamsicle
Only Children
Overseas
05 Running With Our Eyes Closed
River
Be Afraid
St. Peter's Autograph
It Gets Easier
Letting You Og

13 years ago, Jason Isbell quit the Drive-By Truckers to go solo. It worked out. Over the past decade, Isbell has become arguably the biggest star in slightly-left-of-center country music, and he’s left a whole lot of absolutely devastating songs behind him. Isbell’s last album The Nashville Sound, recorded with his band the 400 Unit, came out back in 2017, but it’s not like he hasn’t been busy since then. He’s been touring hard, hitting increasingly bigger venues, and he’s also become the type of person who Hollywood hits up when they need a heart-wrecked country-rock song for a movie. (The man really should’ve at least been nominated for an Oscar for “Maybe It’s Time,” the song he wrote for A Star Is Born.)

For a little while now, Isbell has been keeping things relatively low-key. He’s been backing up his wife Amanda Shires as she’s been touring with her supergroup the Highwomen. He’s been making records with some important people — Sheryl Crow, Barry Gibb — and appearing onstage with others — Strand Of Oaks, Mavis Staples, Ezra Koenig. And now Isbell is back in album mode.

This spring, Isbell and his 400 Unit will return with the new LP Reunions, as The Boot reports. “There are a lot of ghosts on this album,” Isbell said in a statement. “Sometimes the songs are about the ghosts of people who aren’t around anymore, but they’re also about who I used to be, the ghost of myself. I found myself writing songs that I wanted to write fifteen years ago, but in those days, I hadn’t written enough songs to know how to do it yet. Just now have I been able to pull it off to my own satisfaction. In that sense it’s a reunion with the me I was back then.”