Jason Isbell – Foxes in the Snow (LP Vinyl)
Review
Jason Isbell, the beloved singer songwriter who made his name with Drive-By Truckers and cemented his reputation with The 400 Unit, has already released three solo albums. However, you've never heard him on his own quite like this. Foxes in the Snow is Isbell's first fully acoustic solo album, 11 tracks of expert guitar-picking and some of his best songwriting to date. And while he's never been one to bog down his songs with unnecessary instrumental layers or studio tricks, Foxes in the Snow is as intimate as it gets. It's a spectacular listen. The album opens with Isbell's voice calling out, no guitar to hold him: "Bury me where the wind don't blow/ Where the dust won't cover me/ Where the tall grass grows/ Or bury me right where I fall." These are songs of acceptance for life's fragility, winking acknowledgments that none of us get out alive. Indeed, that's Isbell to a T. The record's strongest selection is "Gravelweed," a painfully vulnerable admission of Isbell's growth as a man ("I wish that I could be angry/ Punch a hole in the wall/ But that ain't me anymore, baby") paired with a howl-at-the-moon chorus that'll haunt you for weeks. Foxes in the Snow mixes these heart wrenching songs with sweet, grinning folk tunes like "Don't Be Tough," where Isbell advises, "Don't be shitty to the waiter, he's had a harder day than you." It's humbling and astonishingly good.
— Justin Jacobs, Relix
Product Details
Stripped down to just his voice and acoustic guitar, Isbell delivers the kind of record that reminds you why his songwriting has always been the engine beneath the electricity. The Muscle Shoals and Athens, Georgia scenes that shaped him run deep in this lineage of American song, and Foxes in the Snow sits comfortably alongside the great solo acoustic traditions of that roots-soaked South.
Read our review of Jason Isbell's Foxes in the Snow from March 2025 on Relix here.
Jason Isbell, the beloved singer-songwriter who made his name with Drive-By Truckers and cemented his reputation with The 400 Unit, has already released three solo albums. However, you’ve never heard him on his own quite like this. Foxes in the Snow is Isbell’s first fully acoustic solo album, 11 tracks of expert guitar-picking and some of his best songwriting to date.
And while he’s never been one to bog down his songs with unnecessary instrumental layers or studio tricks, Foxes in the Snow is as intimate as it gets. It’s a spectacular listen. The album opens with Isbell’s voice calling out, no guitar to hold him: “Bury me where the wind don’t blow/ Where the dust won’t cover me/ Where the tall grass grows/ Or bury me right where I fall.”
These are songs of acceptance for life’s fragility, winking acknowledgments that none of us get out alive. Indeed, that’s Isbell to a T. The record’s strongest selection is “Gravelweed,” a painfully vulnerable admission of Isbell’s growth as a man (“I wish that I could be angry/ Punch a hole in the wall/ But that ain’t me anymore, baby”) paired with a howl-at-the-moon chorus that’ll haunt you for weeks.
Foxes in the Snow mixes these heart-wrenching songs with sweet, grinning folk tunes like “Don’t Be Tough,” where Isbell advises, “Don’t be shitty to the waiter, he’s had a harder day than you.” It’s humbling and astonishingly good.
Tracklist
Side A
Side B
UPC: 732388214631
Label: Southeastern Records
Release Date: 3.7.25
Format: LP Vinyl