Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Weathervanes (June 9, 2023) Album • Page 17

I don't think there's anything wrong with a trailer in your dad's yard until you're 23. 23 is a reasonable age to leave that setup

 

23 in 2002 is like 33 now though with inflation

 

I think what I like most about this album is that it may be the first one where the guitars really shine the same way they do at a 400 Unit concert. They always blow me away live with how tight they are as a band and the interplay between Isbell and Sadler on guitar. This has a ton of that energy.

 

I have a question - if you could take the Isbell songs with DBT - I believe there were 9 total - and consider those an "Isbell album" theoretically - where would it rank on your list of Isbell albums?

I think for me it would probably be #2

 

He'd have to re-record them for me to be able to do it. I love those songs, but his voice is so thin and undeveloped on them. The way he sings now is a huge draw to his music for me, and he simply was not as good at singing pre-sobriety. (He was getting there on Here We Rest.)

 

'Decoration Day' live now isn't even the same song as recorded.

edit: maybe not the best comparison because he's quite literally playing it with an entirely different band but, yeah hah.

 

Interesting. I dig the DBT but I became a fan of them and Isbell solo at the same time and am a much bigger Isbell fan........in my head I have always thought of those 9 songs as Isbell songs, not DBT songs. Also in part because I never saw DBT with him in the band and they obviously don't play those tunes now so I don't have that baggage. Different perspective.

 

Yeah his voice became so much stronger after he got sober, it’s crazy how much it changed. Night and day.

 

Above most of his solo records but still below 2/3 records that those songs are actually a part of.

And there are 10 songs by my count:

Outfit
Decoration Day
Day John Henry Died
Danko/Manuel
Never Gonna Change
Goddamn Lonely Love
Daylight
Easy on Yourself
When the Well Runs Dry
TVA

He also played "Dress Blues" a lot with DBT and I think a couple others from his solo debut as well. And since the band on Sirens is basically "DBT minus Cooley" for almost all songs (yes, Shonna included) the line between "DBT" and "post-DBT" isn't a super clean one for me anyway. Plus those songs and a lot of the self-titled don't feel so different stylistically from his Blessing and a Curse contributions.

For me his career arc so far is kind of W-shaped: those first six DBT songs; Side A of Here We Rest, plus basically all of Southeastern & SMTF; and most of this record plus the highlights of Reunions--all three of those eras are essentially equal in my mind and are as good as it gets. The stuff from the two eras in between is still really good but not quite as incredible. That's my $0.02.

 

I was gonna say he already sounded really good here but yeah he's improved a lot

 

He does sound good here but he’s even better now.

I think where he’s improved the most though is how he sings on the “rock” songs. Consider “Good” and “When We Were Close” which are both pretty high octane and towards the top of his range. He sounds strained and thin on the former (and on the Cobb remix, muffled too) but crushes it on the latter.

 

the first two dbt with isbell records are better than any of his solo records imo but the last one would probably be somewhere between southeastern and nashville sound

 

These songs all fuckin slap. Would rank pretty high in his discogs for me.

 

My favorite of his Truckers songs is “Goddamn Lonely Love,” which might just crack my top 25 of his overall. I think he got way better at songwriting too, in addition to his improvement as a singer.

 

i forget who it was, maybe Hyden, but someone had an interesting tweet lately about how it is inarguable that Jason has gotten much bigger since leaving the band but pretty telling that if you ever see him live, the songs that get the biggest pop and typically are placed in the most important parts of the set are the four or five DBT songs that are hits. i love the dude but he hasn't written a song better than Danko/Manuel since.

 

Just played Wednesday’s “Chosen To Deserve” into “This Ain’t It” and every window in my house simultaneously opened to let in the warm summer air.

 

goddamn that wednesday album is still the best thing ive heard all year

 

That's not been my experience at all at the shows I've seen. "Cover Me Up" 100 percent gets the biggest reaction on any given night. It's not even close.

 

ive seen him three times, all three closed with either decoration day or outfit, goddamn lonely love and day john henry died get played repeatedly, and the one time i've seen people scream "OHMYGOD" in any of the shows were the one time he dusted off danko/manuel. idk. obviously his biggest solo song is going to get a big pop too but he isn't closing sets or going into the encore playing it.

 

ah, okay, it wasn't a recent tweet but it was dusted off/RTd recently with jason's new album. has been 100% true in my experience.

 

I would imagine folks assume they’re going to hear Cover Me Up, but they don’t know which, if any, DBT song they’re going to get. So that surprise is going to cause a bigger reaction.

 

Yeah, I just don't think Tom's premise is correct, lol.

The two times I saw him, at least four of the Southeastern songs got a way bigger response than any of the Truckers songs. "Decoration Day" was a crowdpleaser for sure, but I didn't get the sense that people were salivating over, like, "Never Gonna Change." The big ones were definitely "Cover Me Up" and "Relatively Easy." People went apeshit when he did "Traveling Alone" with Amanda, too. And "Super 8" was the big main set closer in at least one of those shows and got a huge response too.

I don't know, I just think it's a pretty demonstrably false statement if you have to include an asterisk for "his biggest solo song." "Cover Me Up" is his signature song of either era and will always be the centerpiece of the set. It doesn't need to be a closer.

 

He didn't play a single DBT song when I saw him a couple weeks back and for the first time it felt appropriate. Now if he hadn't played all but 2 or 3 from the new album I'd probably feel differently. I also kinda feel like I've gotten what I need from the Isbell DBT material live since seeing the mini-reunion in Muscle Shoals a couple years ago. Nothing's gonna top when he ripped into "John Henry" with DBT.

And funny enough, besides "Cover Me Up" the biggest reactions were all to new songs, especially "Death Wish" and "King of Oklahoma"

I just hope he keeps playing "Vampires" because that was the only one where I felt okay hitting the restroom without missing anything I cared about lol (especially since I'd seen it live 6 times before)