Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit Preview New Album Reunions with Rousing Lead Single “Be Afraid”

Grammy-winning, Nashville-based singer-songwriter (and Twitter expert) Jason Isbell has announced a new album alongside his band The 400 Unit, Reunions, coming May 15 via Southeastern Records/Thirty Tigers. The seventh of its 10 tracks, lead single “Be Afraid,” is out now.

“Be Afraid” is an immaculately produced, Southern rock call to arms that exhorts Isbell & The 400 Unit’s fellow artists to be courageous and take action in the face of injustice. “Be afraid, be very afraid / Do it anyway, do it anyway,” Isbell cries in the song’s galvanizing choruses, insisting that those fortunate enough to have a voice speak up for those who don’t. At times, Isbell is introspective, reminding himself that many people, namely his own daughter, see him as a role model, and attempting to reckon with that responsibility.

“There are a lot of ghosts on this album. 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,” says Isbell. “I found myself writing songs that I wanted to write 15 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.”

Produced by Grammy winner Dave Cobb and recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, and featuring background vocals from special guests David Crosby (Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Byrds) and Jay Buchanan (Rival Sons), Reunions is Isbell’s seventh studio album, and his fourth with The 400 Unit, aka Derry deBorja (piano, keyboard, organ, omnichord), Chad Gamble (drums, tambourine), Jimbo Hart (bass), Amanda Shires (fiddle) and Sadler Vaden (acoustic guitar, electric guitar), with whom he’s also put out two live albums. Their last studio collaboration, 2017’s The Nashville Sound, was one of that year’s best albums, and they followed it with 2018’s Live from the Ryman.

Isbell and his band will tour extensively this year in support of their new record, with plenty of U.S. dates on the docket, including two-night stands in New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco and Austin. Tickets for their newly confirmed shows go on sale this Friday, Feb. 14, at 10 a.m. local.

Listen to “Be Afraid” and watch Isbell & The 400 Unit perform at the Paste office circa 2010 below, then find the details of Reunions and the band’s tour dates further down. You can preorder the album here.

Reunions Album Art:

Reunions Tracklist:
01. What’ve I Done To Help
02. Dreamsicle
03. Only Children
04. Overseas
05. Running With Our Eyes Closed
06. River
07. Be Afraid
08. St. Peter’s Autograph
09. It Gets Easier
10. Letting You Go