Jason Isbell’s Foxes in the Snow is an Album about Love, Loss and Carrying On
With grace, Isbell throws back the curtain on first solo studio album in a decade. It’s roots music at its purest: nothing but the sound of his voice, memories, melodies and guitar, all captured over the course of a five-day wake at Electric Lady Studios in New York.
There is a specific kind of comfort in music made by folks who come from home. While it has its share of ugly qualities (like most places), Alabama’s way of life is precious. Even after seven years in a big city in a neighboring state, I regularly feel my roots tugging me back toward my beautiful, sometimes brutish, frequently misunderstood home state. And no one in modern music captures that pull as beautifully, and bittersweetly, as Jason Isbell, particularly on his exceptional new album, Foxes in the Snow.
It can only be compared to how New Jerseyians must feel while listening to Springsteen, or Michiganders enjoying some Seger. Foxes in the Snow sounds like holding back tears while heading east over the I-20 state line; the space between the trees in the Talladega Forest; taking in the quiet expanse of the Gulf from the shore; walking the length of Moundville on a Saturday morning, with nothing but your own demons to keep you company. It sounds like heartbreak in the holler. It tastes like boiled peanut brine. Isbell may now be a longtime Nashville resident, but it’s clearer than ever that he keeps his origins close to his heart. Bama’s in my bones, and it’s in his: “You could strip me of everything I own / Just leave me with the memories of my Alabama home,” he sings on “Crimson and Clay.”
Foxes in the Snow, Isbell’s first studio album in a decade recorded without the 400 Unit band at his side, is truly roots music at its purest: nothing but the sound of Isbell’s voice, memories, melodies and guitar, all captured over the course of a five-day wake at Electric Lady Studios in New York. And in channeling his genre’s humble folk beginnings, Isbell on Foxes produces some of his most direct, emotional and gut-wrenching songs in years, echoing the finest of his masterful solo catalogue (including his best, 2013’s Southeastern). While his work with the 400 Unit over the last few years has made for some rocking Americana arrangements, Foxes in the Snow stands out for just how uncomplicated it is. Like his forefathers Townes Van Zandt and John Prine, Isbell is often at his most powerful when it’s just his voice and the guitar. At its core, Foxes in the Snow is a folk album.
It will likely get extra attention for the simple fact that it’s Isbell’s first release since announcing his divorce last year. There’s no doubt that context adds extra weight to theses songs, especially those that are so openly about personal upheaval (“Good While It Lasted,” “Eileen” etc.), but the thesis of Foxes in the Snow really boils down to this: how to carry on when life doesn’t turn out how you thought, and how to refocus when the picture of home blurs.