- Record Label: Thirty Tigers
- Release Date: Feb 17, 2009
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The result is that, in both content and form, The 400 Unit is an unapologetically Southern album, and the lived-in authenticity of its performances, masterful songwriting, and fierce intelligence also make it one of the finest albums of what has already been a strong year for popular music.
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A tight collection fueled by glints of the rock, soul and country that came out of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., in the '60s and '70s.
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With Drive-By Truckers, singer-guitarist Jason Isbell learned to embrace some of those [Southern rock] cliches; on his gritty, vibrant second solo album, he begins to transcend them.
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Just barely out of his twenties, he writes with the well-worn weariness of someone twice his age, but Isbell's youth nevertheless breathes energy into a formula that's been revisited by many Southern-born songwriters before.
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This is best thought of as ‘country soul’. Isbell’s words, in style and content, are old-school tears-in-the-beer laments, deftly lightened by exquisite deadpan payoffs.
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Many of the songs on Isbell's sophomore release don't necessarily aim for (or achieve) such profundity, yet they still compel through sheer verve and Isbell's unwillingness to let an unhip sound or idea discourage him.
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The horns and soul on 'No Choice in the Matter' mark an interesting new direction, but occasionally Isbell delves too deeply into Ryan Adams introspection mode, and the results are listless.
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The 400 Unit--named for a mental facility in Isbell’s current hometown of Florence, Ala.--lays out blistering riffs on 'Good' and 'However Long,' but slower songs like the maudlin 'Cigarettes and Wine' and the zitar- and horns-laden 'No Choice in the Matter' are overlong and languid, lacking energy and urgency.
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