Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit with Special Guest Deer Tick

A Jason Isbell record always lands like a decoder ring in the ears and hearts of his audience, a soundtrack

to his world and magically to theirs, too. “Weathervanes” carries the same revelatory power. This is a

storyteller at the peak of his craft, observing his fellow wanderers, looking inside and trying to

understand, reducing a universe to four minutes. He shrinks life small enough to name the fear and then

strip it away, helping his listeners make sense of how two plus two stops equaling four once you reach a

certain age -- and carry a certain amount of scars.

“There is something about boundaries on this record,” Isbell says. “As you mature, you still attempt to

keep the ability to love somebody fully and completely while you’re growing into an adult and learning

how to love yourself.”

“Weathervanes” is a collection of grown-up songs: Songs about adult love, about change, about the

danger of nostalgia and the interrogation of myths, about cruelty and regret and redemption. Life and

death songs played for and by grown ass people. Some will make you cry alone in your car and others

will make you sing along with thousands of strangers in a big summer pavilion, united in the great

miracle of being alive. The record features the rolling thunder of Isbell’s fearsome 400 Unit, who’ve

earned a place in the rock ‘n’ roll cosmos alongside the greatest backing ensembles, as powerful and