The harmonica starts it off like the whistle of a departing train. An acoustic guitar plays octave couplets, rolling toms take it deeper, as a murky bass rolls around underneath it all, like it can’t quite get its footing, and a resonator slide answers with a call inviting all to come listen. The swampy groove leads directly to the heart of the matter – this is a dark, dense, unhurried exploration of the pain of not believing in oneself, of trying to kill or bury or at least drown the gut-wrenching realization that there is no redemption in the path ahead, but the path ahead is the only one that can be seen or imagined. And while it can’t be known, the path ahead may be all there is.
The protagonists in this batch of songs are misfits who have lost faith in themselves, in their dreams, and in the hope of ever being a part of humanity instead of standing outside of it. As a result, they indulge passions that are destroying them, drug and drink, make fools of themselves, look back on their lives wondering where it all went wrong, or simply kill themselves in despair. There are occasional moments of determination or possibility, but for the most part, the voices can’t be quieted. They taunt, they question, they disturb, they haunt, they imprison.
The album is bookended by two characters who see no hope in going on.
Take my body to Seven-Mile island.
Lay some stones down on top of my grave.
Tell my lady I just couldn’t bear to see her.
Tell my daughter I just couldn’t be saved.
-
These are the last words I will sing.
This is the end of everything.
I’m crawling away to the sea.
I’m crawling away to the sea.
This album is the other side of the coin Isbell is exploring right now. It is purgatory to Southeastern’s redemption. Inaccessible. Challenging. Insistent. Demanding. If you sit above it or beside it, listening casually, it can come across as boring, drab, harsh, unengaging. It lopes along at roughly the same speed outside of a few hyper-rock moments shoehorned in there to break up the monotone. I think this is how a lot of reviewers listened to the album, and how many came away unimpressed or even turned off. It seems that some fans had a similar reaction.
However, if you don’t bring your insistence that it should be something other than it is, if you check your sense of urgency at the door, surrender to it and and settle into something out of time, the album reveals its depth, its intimacy, and the chronicling of a chilling struggle to just remain alive physically and emotionally, even beyond hope.
Here it is morning for some folks, twilight for those of us left.
Why did I call you, I shouldn’t be giving a fuck.
We make little fools of ourselves.
Where is your masterpiece?
I can’t make myself do right.
All these shadows they get bigger and bigger in the light.
Lost on the dry side of town, my memories slowing me down.
She left me alone with these pills in the last of my youth.
Blessed are the poor when they are swinging from the gallows.
See the poet with nothing left to say. Staring down at blank pages all day. Let the alcohol take you away and sleep the way that fools do.
I think the road will break me and never fill the hole.
I’m too scared to ask the right questions. Too tired to fill the right shoes.
Hold me down when I can’t find drink.
Please dance so I don’t have to think.
Love leaves you no choice in the matter.
The woman who lays down beside you, she can’t help or hide you.
You yourself don’t know who you are.
My hands, they used to be a young man’s hands, but I worked them to the bone for my woman. When’d she even find the time to get to know another man? Leave me alone.
After a couple drinks she’s a little scared of you.
You can’t make her fight when you know that you’re wrong.
You wish you could spend more time toeing civilian lines, but they’re all scared of you.
This ain’t where you belong.
It couldn’t be worse than this.
Most of all you got strange.
You just disappeared, it wasn’t right.
Close your eyes and remember this. It won’t be back again. It’s almost gone.
Even times that don't seem like much will be your only crutch when you're alone.
Pretty soon you’ll remember when you could remember when you loved someone.
This ain’t the world we signed up for.
This album is best listened to loud, late at night, and with enough alcohol on board to slow yourself down and stop being distracted by other things or impulses. I don’t listen to this album as much anymore as I used to (by necessity since it played nonstop over headphones the summer it came out as I spent some weeks exploring Spain and New Zealand), but when I do, I usually put it right back on for another spin as soon as it ends. It took maybe a dozen listens for me to even begin liking much of it, maybe fifty for its full depth to be revealed. I’ve listened hundreds of times by now, and hold it up among the best of the Truckers and Trucker-related records.
Sirens was more of a grab-bag collection of songs, Here We Rest was accessible but shallower, and Southeastern seems pretty brilliant and captivating but has yet to prove its staying power. To my ears, this is the only band record among them - even though Here We Rest employs the group to good effect as backup, it seems more like a solo record to me than a band record. 400 Unit feels of a place in time, and Matt Pence provides not only some strong percussion, but the most detailed production of any in the Truckers/related catalog. The band inhabits Jason’s songs in ways that even DBT only did on occasion, with many of those feeling as much solo songs on Trucker records as band songs to my ears.
I think it was olwiggum who said the album is all about the bridges, and some, like in Sunstroke and No Choice in the Matter, define the songs and take them places they would never have reached otherwise. It’s a rewarding listen, but not an easy one. I expect this is the last record Jason’s new country-pop fans will cozy up to, and am not surprised that he rarely plays these songs at this point in his career as it would seem at cross-purposes with how he is focusing on presenting himself, but I’ve heard all of the arguments on 3DD and 9B as to the relative inferiority of this record, and I wholeheartedly disagree. It may not be a place that is easy to get to, or that many people want to go, but I think he, the band and Matt Pence went there brilliantly overall.
