Jason Isbell was one of the three songwriting forces within Drive By Truckers but departed last year to launch his own solo career. Sirens Of The Ditch is his first record and like the Truckers it’s dirty, raunchy, country rock, mixing it up with sad, sad, acoustic blues. Musically – chugging distorted guitars mix it up with slide guitars, countrified pianos, and acoustic pickery, and the volume oscillates from gentle acoustic numbers to rockalyptica.
Like his erstwhile bandmates, Isbell has the knack of being able to make rootsy music sound apocalyptic. And, indeed, some of the subject matter is suitably suggestive of end-times – particularly on ‘Dress Blues’, the story of the death of a local boy in Iraq, while other tunes are tears-in-your-beer country blues (‘Hurricanes And Hand Grenades’). Occasionally the material seems a little stretched thin (‘Grown’ is kind of boring), and there’s a sense that he’s learning the skill of sequencing an album by himself. But generally Sirens Of The Ditch is pleasantly suggestive of grit, sand and backroom bars.
Key Track: ‘Dress Blues’