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<\/a>I couldn\u2019t let the year get past me without saying something about this great disc from the former Drive By Trucker, Jason Isbell. He\u2019s been turning out some amazing from-the-gut compositions that hit all corners of life head on. \u201cThe Nashville Sound\u201d did not disappoint me.<\/p>\nHe starts the CD off with \u201cLast of My Kind\u201d, lyrically borrowing syntax from John Prine to tell the story of a small town kid trying to find his way in a faster, less empathetic urban environment to the accompaniment of piano, fiddle and guitar. From that Jason shocks the listener awake with the a rocking \u201cCumberland Gap\u201d, power chords expressing the frustrations of living in an Appalachian coal town and trying to break free of the multi-generational grasp of the life in the mines. On \u201cTupelo\u201d, Isbell gets the country rock mix right in line with the Eagles sound from the \u201cDesperado\u201d years, and features a tasty slide lead.<\/p>\n
Hardly one to let the opportunity to make a social statement pass, \u201cWhite Man\u2019s World\u201d deals with complacency in the current racial equality discussion revolving around the \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d movement. The song features a down and dirty slide and a fiery fiddle solo. Isbell cuts it back to a gentle but quirky love song in \u201cIf We Were Vampires\u201d, ruing the day that death breaks the relationship and leaves one of the partners alone. The song is predominantly played as a simple acoustic guitar melody, but presents a unique view of love lasting through a whole life as few songs do these days.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\u201cAnxiety\u201d begins with an almost classical crescendo and recognizes the weakness that haunts so many of us, manifesting itself as a lapse in the basic faith that allows us each to meet the world each day, and ends with a classically inspired movement to top it off. It is an almost, but not quite regretful retrospective look at one\u2019s life on \u201cMolotov\u201d, as a couple trades in their wild youth for the responsibility of making a family. Isbell follows that with an acoustic tale of the end of a relationship on, \u201cChaos and Clothes\u201d, as his lover leaves him for another.<\/p>\n