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Peter: We’ve got a good one tonight, Tyler!

Tyler: Oh yes we do.

Peter: Like a lot of folks, I first became aware of Jason Isbell via his 2013 breakout album, Southeastern. Are you a longtime fan?

Tyler: Have been since Southeastern, as well.  Once his next album, Something More Than Free, got into my consciousness, I was truly hooked.

He’s an immense talent.

Peter: Absolutely. Southeastern has long been in my top ten and I can’t think of even one thing wrong with it.

I’ve enjoyed many of his subsequent releases, but, despite some really terrific moments, none of them have measured up to Southeastern in my opinion. Until now, that is.

Tyler: I really dig everything he’s released since and including 2011’s pre-sobriety Here We Rest.  To my ear the guy hasn’t stepped wrong since.

Peter: I’m embarrassed to say that I only recently discovered this album. I knew it was out there, but I had not found the time to check it out. I know you were on it from the jump. I was apparently too busy with Ringo the 4th to give it a listen.

Tyler: Lord knows you listened to Ringo the 4th enough times.

Peter: My wife was just saying that! Unprompted. She brought it up.

Very weird.

Anyway, the name of the album is Weathervanes. We should mention that.

The opener is called “Death Wish.”

Tyler: The lead single, and a different style from anything Isbell had released in the past.

Peter: The knock on this album, if there is one, is that it’s too experimental.

Tyler: It certainly includes some departures from the man’s established sound.  Isbell produced himself this time around, and he pushes the band to new places.

Peter: The drums are kind of wonky on this one. The kick drum lands on the 2nd beat, which hits the ear funny.

Tyler: The drums absolutely announce that something is different here.  That and the vocal-led intro burst out of the gate with real force.

Peter: There are so many good lines on this record. “It takes a whole lot of medicine to feel like a little kid.”

Tyler: “Did you ever catch her climbin’ on the rooftop/Higher than a kite/Dead of winter/In a tank top” is just a killer sequence.  The tension of the behavior he describes, he ramps it up with each detail.

Peter: Yeah, he’s a master storyteller. Speaking of which…

Tyler: Oh yeah.

Peter: “King of Oklahoma.”

Tyler: A masterclass.

Peter: Just terrific. A great, great song.

Tyler: “Death Wish” is good.  Very good.  “King Of Oklahoma” is something else, though.

Peter: He creates such a rich universe.

Tyler: He really does.

I’m blown away essentially every time when he flips “And I’d hear her homemade house shoes slide across the floor” into “And I’d act like I was sleeping ’til she walked back through the door.”  That is just a devastating turn.

Peter: It absolutely is.

I love the attention to geography on this record. Here, “She’s going back to Bixby.”

Bixby being a suburb of Tulsa. Apparently.

The internet said.

Tyler: Shades of “Alabama Pines,” where Waynes has the only liquor store open on Sunday.

Peter: Love that. More of it to come on here, as well.

Tyler: “King Of Oklahoma,” man.  We don’t even need to finish the album.  Good night, folks!

But wait!

Peter: There’s more!

“Strawberry Woman” has classic third-song-on-the-album energy.

Tyler: “I remember you lookin’ up at me/Drinkin’ Irish whiskey on the Irish sea.”  He just cannot be stopped.  Sublime.

Peter: It’s a nice one. It sounds more like a traditional Jason Isbell song.

Tyler: It does!  It’s one of those fine love songs that are most assuredly about Isbell’s wife, Amanda Shires, a regarded musician in her own right.

Peter: My brother in-law once described Jason as Amanda Shires’ husband, which I found delightful.

Tyler: I’d wager good money that Isbell would appreciate that.

Peter: I thought the same thing!

Tyler: He’s got a great sense of humor.  He’s one of the good guys.

Peter: 100%.

The next song, “Middle of the Morning,” is a pandemic song. “A thousand days alone/In my bed or in my head or in my phone.”

Tyler: I’ll be damned.  I never placed it as a lockdown lament.  That makes sense.

This one has a Stax and/or Motown feel to it.  It’s plenty soulful.

Peter: Yeah, it’s nice.

“By the middle of the morning/I’m out of shit to say.”

Tyler: We get a sense here of the frosty, prickly Isbell that showed up from time to time in Sam Jones’s documentary about the making of 2020’s Reunions, Running With Our Eyes Closed.  That film is at times a tough watch, given the tensions between Isbell and Shires.  Their marriage on full display.

Peter: Yeah, I actually never finished that.

Tyler: It’s a challenge.

Peter: He’s an intense guy.

Next up is “Save The World.”

Tyler: This one’s about being a parent in this senseless age of ceaseless gun violence.

Peter: He wrote it shortly after the Uvalde school shooting. It’s kind of a big swing, but I really like the production. This is another one that’s a bit of a departure from his signature sound.

Tyler: It’s almost a straightforward modern-rock song.  Foo Fighters could cover this and it’d sound natural.

Peter: I’d listen to that.

The 400 Unit really shine on this album.

These stylistic departures let them show off a little.

Tyler: This now represents the final album with Jimbo Hart on bass.  He departed the band officially a month or two ago.

Peter: Yes, thank you for your service, Jimbo.

Oh God, Gronkowski’s going to try to sell him insurance.

It was a joke! He didn’t really serve!

Okay, next up is “If You Insist.”

He wrote this for a movie. It’s written from the perspective of a woman.

Tyler: Really!

Peter: They wanted to own the master recording so he just kept it for himself.

Tyler: As well he should have.  Fuck that deal.

Peter: He said they were, “Not nice.”

It’s another good tune. There are no bad songs on this album.

No skips, as they say.

Tyler: I see it as a lyric that could be from the perspective of strangers, or of a married couple trying to recapture their spark.

Peter: He didn’t mention the name of the film it was intended for. Would be interesting to know.

Tyler: That coy scoundrel!  By which I mean honorable gentleman.

Peter: The next one is a biggie.

Tyler: “Cast Iron Skillet.”

Peter: Instant classic.

Love it.

Tyler: It’s gentle and it aches.  Quietly subversive.

Peter: It starts with the true story of a kid Jason played baseball with as a kid who wound up murdering a guy.

Tyler: Oof.

Peter: There are some terrific lyrics in this one. “Was it 27 times/Or was it 29?/I heard the blade broke off inside the man/and he took a while to die.”

Tyler: “Shied away from the inside fastballs and died doing life without parole.”

Peter: Just incredible economy in the story telling. Sums up a life. Just like that.

The second half of the song is about a distant relative who got disowned for dating a Black guy.

Tyler: “How did you get so low?/Seems like just a year ago she was sitting on your shoulder watching fireworks in the sky.”

Peter: So good.

“He treats her like a queen, but you don’t know ’cause you ain’t seen/It’s hard to go through life without your daddy by your side.”

Tyler: “Laughin’ like his soul was without sin.”  We could do this all night.

Peter: Very true.

Side note, there are bits of “Southern Wisdom,” sprinkled throughout the song. One example I found sort of horrifying was, “Don’t walk where you can’t see your feet.” We don’t say that where I’m from. Were you familiar with that saying?

Tyler: No, and it struck me as well.  I grew up near woods, so I thought “Well, that makes sense.”

Peter: I find it very disturbing! What’s down there? Gators? Snakes? The south is like those Saw movies?

Tyler: Look out!