June 11th was good for good music this year. Two absolutely brilliant albums came out that day, John Moreland’s In The Throes and Southeastern By Jason Isbell. I quickly wrote about Moreland the other day and now it’s time to praise the Isbell album a bit. Southeastern is also the new album of the month here at the onechord.net headquarters.

In my corner of the universe, Jason Isbell is a big star, a hall of fame singer-songwriter and don’t need any kind of introduction. On a global scale that is not be entirely true and a big chunk of that stardom that I see is still just a perspective illusion, because he is so highly regarded in the folk/americana/alt-country community that I live in. His new album Southeastern came out on june 11th and it’s a home run. Jason has been a magnificent songwriter for ten years or so, but for me this is the first consistently brilliant album he has released. The previous one Here We Rest had an out-of-this world first half, but the second half contained some just ok songs (of course it was still on my 2011 top 10, because most of it was so amazing). Southeastern on the other hand is just damn brilliant from start to finish. Well I guess one could make a case out of Super 8 even though there’s nothing really wrong with it. Just feels a bit insignificant rocker when compared to world class songs like Yvette, Live Oak, Elephant & Different Days. In overall, Jason Isbell has matured beautifully and written a future classic. Five hearts any day of the week.

This is Stockholm from the new album:

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Jason Isbell Website