Back catalogue: Folk/Americana

Review: Jason Isbell's tenth album is the first to hear the singer-songwriter without his 400 Unit band, and marks a return to the spotlight after a ten-year break, following 2015's Something More Than Free. Recorded over five days at Electric Lady Studios in New York, Isbell contrasts to the studio totalities of his earlier records here, this time playing all the songs on a single all-mahogany 1940 Martin 0-17 acoustic guitar. Evoking warm, diurnal drives across interstate roads, and carvings on oak tree trunks forsook by old times, Isbell's lyrics are real wrenchers, balancing fantasies of an outlawed life lived on the run, with those of a humbler pedigree.

Review: If you've managed to tune out of society's collapse and the reorganisation of global orders for a second this week, it might have become apparent that Jason Isbell has swept up countless Album of the Week column inches. It's not hard to hear why, either. Finally, then, something we can all agree on - Foxes In The Snow is a breathtaking slice of Americana, folk, country and unplugged rock that's very timely really. Proof, if it were needed, of the vulnerability, thoughtfulness and feelings that can define humans if they stop shouting and shooting each other. An all-acoustic recording, Isbell played a 1940 Martin 0-17 guitar and nothing else to make this record. As so many critics have pointed out, how exposed he is throughout is why this feels like an artist unleashing their true superpowers. It's raw, it's honest and there is absolutely nowhere to hide here. For anyone. Expect few dry eyes in any house when this plays out, then.