Any fiction teacher worth his or her salt will tell you that details-- precisely chosen, concisely described-- are crucial for making stories and characters believable. At least from his very first songs with the Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell has proved he's innately aware of this maxim: "Outfit", "Decoration Day", and "Danko/Manuel" are crammed with telling observations, concrete imagery, and lots of proper nouns. Likewise, his debut solo album, Sirens of the Ditch, works so well because it sounds so specific, whether he's ostensibly singing about his own predicaments or about his characters'.
On "Grown", he admits to "dancing to 'Purple Rain'" as a kid; on "Try", he advises himself to "take a year off and go back home," as if he's already worked out a plan in his head. With its observations about "bombs in the sand" and "scripture on grocery store signs," "Dress Blues" is the most complicated consideration of military heroism since the Dixie Chicks' "Travelin' Soldier". Best of all is the swamp-rock saga "Down in a Hole", which comes up one corncob shy of Faulknerian. In the first verse, Isbell describes a man "standing in the window with his tongue hanging out/ With a dirty white suit, a big white hat, and a bullet in his pocket." The man's wealth and ambition have corroded a small Southern town, but rather than preach outright, Isbell couches it in a character's advice to another not to work for this man. "It's like selling your soul," he warns.
Isbell himself is obviously an ambitious songwriter and storyteller, and perhaps that trait led to his exit from the Drive-By Truckers earlier this year. Who but the band really know? When Isbell came aboard for the Southern Rock Opera tour in 2002, filling out the band's Skynyrdesque three-guitar attack, his work fit perfectly alongside that of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, both of whom specialize in story-songs drenched in local color and rich with regional detail. In 2004 and 2005, when the Truckers released Decoration Day and The Dirty South, it seemed unfair that one band should horde three top-notch songwriters, but in 2006, the lackluster A Blessing and a Curse showed the cracks in the unit.
Like that album, Sirens occasionally sounds too slick, as on "Chicago Promenade" and "Brand New Kind of Actress", like he's trying to sell us something. With several Truckers in tow-- including Patterson Hood (who co-produces), bass player Shonna Tucker, and drummer Brad Morgan-- Isbell shows off his mastery of heavy Southern rock riffage on "Try" (which could be an epilogue to "Danko/Manuel"), but the mostly acoustic second half works hard to distance him from the Truckers' dense electric sound and to expand his lyrical and vocal range. "Hurricanes and Hand Grenades"-- five minutes of Muscle Shoals soul-- is the most obvious departure and features Isbell's most effortless and powerful performance. "The Magician" strums along at a front-porch clip that underscores the ache of the lyrics ("I had a bride/ I sawed her in half" is both sad and funny), and the tense guitars of "Shotgun Wedding" bolster its shoddy stalker story, but closer "The Devil Is My Running Mate" is dark and too heavy-handed, suggesting that political commentary isn't Isbell's forte. It's a weak ending for a strong debut full of the kind of confident, charismatic songwriting that just can't be taught.
