Foxes In The Snow

It sounds as glorious as it is spare. Folk music: it’s effing back, folks.

These songs should reach and endure far beyond their context, as they're extraordinary even by Isbell's standards. [Apr 2025, p.31]

Foxes in the Snow is just further proof that Isbell is most suited to the task of telling it like it is, even if that means bearing his own ugly mistakes for everyone to hear.

This is a fine release with great emotional depth, and its oft-haunted tone is given a perfect kiss-off with the final track, which can only be described as pure - a loving ode built upon classic country song imagery.

Jason Isbell is a singer and songwriter who is never afraid to do the work to make his music something special, and even when he's performing in stripped-down fashion, he delivers great songs and the commitment to make them special. Anyone who questions that hasn't heard Foxes in the Snow.

While this record may not be a joy to listen to, it’s emotionally engaging and worthwhile.

The album features only Isbell and one 85-year-old acoustic guitar, with no percussion or accoutrements of any sort, resulting in his most starkly realized effort to date.

Foxes in the Snow is a broad collection of songs played alone on his acoustic 1940 Martin antique guitar, seemingly without a central theme. Few artists can get away with such a simple approach, but Isbell has earned that status. The question then is whether there will be memorable songs like “Cover Me Up” or “Elephant” that define Southeastern. Only time will tell whether they are here.

He remains one of the few songwriters who can capture the indelible marks we leave on one another ("Good While It Lasted") with impressive verisimilitude, plumbing the depths of human emotion in a mere quatrain. Even at his most didactic ("Don't Be Tough"), he comes across as an old friend gently leading the way.

Though more naked than his prior alt-country stylings, Isbell’s voice is as welcome as ever, sounding weathered and pure sometimes in the same line.

The constant references to New York City reveal not refinement but a perpetual fish-out-of-water state, of being handed the marshal’s baton by accident or circumstance and then pressed into service. The agony over him trying to control the message of his personal life is washed away in the descriptions of a man ostensibly standing in the tide wearing a soaking-wet tuxedo.

It may never be regarded as his best work, but for certain fans at certain points in their lives, it’s all they need to hear.