Album review: Jason Isbell goes the full monty on nakedly vulnerable Foxes in the Snow
Solo album No.4 for this acclaimed US singer-songwriter is naked in both form and content: several songs address Isbell’s 2024 divorce from wife and musical partner Amanda Shires.
Album reviews for week of March 21 2025:
AMERICANA
Foxes in the Snow
Jason Isbell
Southeastern Records
It’s a rare artist who can stand figuratively naked, whether on stage or in the studio, armed only with voice and guitar. But at the risk of revealing too much information, American heartland singer-songwriter and storyteller Jason Isbell has gone full monty with his 10th (and fourth solo) album, Foxes In The Snow, 11 songs accompanied only by his beloved 85-year-old Martin 0-17 acoustic. Recorded direct to tape over five days last October in New York’s famed Electric Lady Studios, Foxes is naked in both form and content. All but three of its songs address not only Isbell’s 2024 divorce from wife and musical partner Amanda Shires — former violinist with his acclaimed band the 400 Unit — but also his blossoming new romance with Canadian-born, New York-based painter Anna Weyant, whose cover art adorns the new album. Isbell also unflinchingly examines his own dark soul on opener (and first single) Bury Me, a stark requiem that looks back on his life at an imagined time of dying; Don’t Be Tough — a litany of self-advice that urges him to, among other things, “let love knock you on your ass” – and the similarly autobiographical Crimson and Clay. Of at least four songs lamenting the end of his marriage, Gravelweed hits hardest. Named for those unstoppable weeds that sprout between brick pavers, through gravel and sometimes even concrete, it’s an apology for how Isbell’s love songs “all mean different things today … and now I live to see my melodies betray me”.
Eileen, a song possibly retitled because “Amanda” didn’t fit its meter, is also more about him than her: “You should have seen this coming sooner”. To balance the ledger, both Good While It Lasted and True Believer paint positive portraits of his ex, though in the latter Isbell again makes himself the focus: “All your girlfriends say I broke your f..king heart / And I don’t like it”. By contrast, Isbell’s paeans to his new love are effusively mawkish: “I love my love / I love her bite / I love the way she disassembles me at night”; “I don’t say things that I don’t mean / And you’re the best thing I’ve ever seen”; “She speaks in a whisper and calls me by name”. In confessional mode, he finds fresh beauty in the mundane: a dog curled in his lap, cups of tea, making wardrobe space for his lover’s shoes, even propping an easel for her in the spare room. There’s room for humour, too: in Open and Close, which hinges on a dazzling guitar motif, Isbell berates a New York covers band for butchering a Steely Dan song – “the solo was f..ked to hell” – and gently bags his own gender in the jocular Ride to Robert’s: “God said ‘Hold my beer’ / And he made a man so he could watch and laugh.” It will be intriguing to see how many of these nakedly vulnerable songs are included in the live set when Isbell and the 400 Unit play the big rooms in support of Paul Kelly on his arena tour in August and September.
Phil Stafford
HARD ROCK
Scars
Sisters Doll
Xmusic
3 stars
As the program that gave this quartet its initial break suggests, Sisters Doll’s got talent. Record No. 3 by the hard rockin’ Western Australia-born, Melbourne-based Mileto brothers is awash with Van Halen-esque flash and power pop hooks to make their Sunset Strip idols proud. Out of Hell, Prisoner and Take You Away are the standout anthems, with lead shredder Austin Mileto playing a technical blinder across the heavier cuts. However, like the foundation these siblings sport, there’s still an element of things occasionally being “skin deep”. This is most evident in their admittedly admirable attempts to craft thoughtful acoustic ballads, but sadly, the mid-album campfire breaks of First Time and Don’t Give Up On Us don’t quite land. The closing number/title track is more successful, however; it transitions from a Celtic dirge to a full-blown power ballad that ends things on a high note. By stylistically throwing things back to an age before these musicians were conceived, Sisters Doll does a solid job of creating pump-up songs for guitar heroes but it’s a work in progress when it comes to expressing the band’s more sensitive side.
Alasdair Belling
FOLK/POP
Enter Now Brightness
Nadia Reid
Chrysalis
“Here I am,” repeats Nadia Reid on her first album in five years. Much has changed for her in the interim, including new-found motherhood and relocation from Port Chalmers, New Zealand, to Manchester, England. Wanting to focus more on singing than on playing, she has left guitar duties to accompanist Sam Taylor and multi-instrumentalist/producer Tom Healy. That allows Reid to devote full attention to her most commanding singing and lyricism to date, all while sounding as commercially appealing as she does emotionally affecting. Her intimate, talky delivery on stripped-back tracks like Cry on Cue and Even Now should appeal to Laura Marling fans, while Changed Unchained adds the drama of a four-piece band behind her. The single Hotel Santa Cruz is especially bright and punchy as Reid poses earnest questions before confessing “I’m only seeking truth and light”. Elsewhere, she sings about how loving a certain someone is second nature to her, and how a song’s subject is everything she would like to be. Universal sentiments, but Reid makes them her own.
Doug Wallen
ROCK
Constellations For the Lonely
Doves
EMI North
Doves have had their wings clipped. Tours have been curtailed since the Mancunians’ last album in 2020 due to bassist and lead vocalist Jimi Goodwin’s issues with alcohol and mental health. His grit-edged baritone does still grace its sixth album, but his presence is scaled back, with twin brothers Jez and Andy Williams stepping up to the mic, with mixed results. On Cold Dreaming – which could more accurately be titled Coldplay Dreaming – Jez’s vocals are thin compared to Goodwin’s assured tones, while Last Year’s Man, which Andy wrote about fatherhood, edges the chintz meter into the red. Jez fares better on Strange Weather, with the band doing its best to approximate a love-in between Radiohead and Pink Floyd. Gloom and grandeur have long been the group’s go-to settings, and there’s an emphasis on the former here, with only occasional cracks letting the light through. Brighter spots top and tail the album – Renegades swoons and swoops like an alternative soundtrack to Blade Runner; and halfway through the life-affirming Southern Bell, they seem to remember playing in arenas again, as Jez’s guitar reaches for the stars and Goodwin declares “We’ll go on forever”.
Barry Divola
INDIE ROCK
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Jagjaguwar
After six solo albums, US singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten has embraced full-band collaboration for the first time by devising these songs from group jam sessions. Working closely with keyboardist Teeny Lieberson, bassist Devra Hoff and drummer Jorge Balbi, she digs into a record of synth-driven rock that packs some weighty themes, including mortality, distance and time. As prominent as the electronic elements are, Van Etten’s voice still rises easily above them on opener Live Forever, complete with a dramatic tremble. Likewise, her vocal smoulder anchors the drifting Trouble and her questioning lyrics (including a nod to Talking Heads) provide vital texture to the motorik pulse of Somethin’ Ain’t Right. And though the wavering heartland thrust of Idiot Box, off-kilter dynamics of Indio and disco percolations of I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way) feel less satisfying, the album closes with a powerful pair of ballads. This isn’t quite a misstep for Van Etten, but there is new-found unevenness as she settles into a more varied and democratic configuration.
Doug Wallen
Album reviews for week of March 14 2025:
POP
Mayhem
Lady Gaga
Interscope / Universal Music Australia
With her seventh album, Lady Gaga dips back into the dark-pop roots that first gave her an international profile, yet executes it with greater versatility and perspective than before. The release of this 14-track set, led by the singles Disease and Abracadabra, indicated that the American talent, born Stefani Germanotta, would be revisiting the eras that spawned her pop culture zeitgeist entries Born This Way (2011) and ArtPop (2013). While early reports hinted at a full-blown throwback to the music that introduced her as an avant-garde pop auteur, Mayhem does well at paying homage to those early chapters without using them as a crutch. Its energy very much leans into its title: Mayhem is a chaotic blur of sound and influence, and has a refined and matured touch threaded throughout. “Controlled chaos” may be the perfect way to describe Gaga’s presentation vocally and artistically with this outing. Mayhem is undeniably more fun – gleefully so – than her recent releases; a fitting companion to 2020’s Chromatica, a criminally underrated album that fell victim to the curse of records released during the depths of Covid lockdowns. Synth-pop and disco (Vanish Into You, Zombieboy) clash vibrantly with the industrial Prince-flecked funk of Killah, and How Bad Do U Want Me — a Taylor Swift-coded pop moment that soars in the album’s second half. Maximalist energy finds its home at various points: in Gaga’s melodic belting on Shadow of a Man, the drama of Blade of Grass, or the anthemic range of Perfect Celebrity.
Recorded at Rick Rubin’s revered Shangri-La studio, Mayhem was produced predominantly by Gaga alongside Grammy-winning producers Andrew Watt and Cirkut. Additional production touches are applied by fiance Michael Polansky, as well as French DJ and producer Gesaffelstein, US producers James Fauntleroy II (Frank Ocean, SZA) and D’Mile (Rihanna, Mary J. Blige), and Bruno Mars, whose chart-topping collaboration with Gaga, Die With a Smile, closes the album. On the placement of the Gaga/Mars link up, what may have seemed like a random stand-alone release in 2024 now holds a unique space on what is a rollercoaster ride of a project here. The broad and theatrical nature of Mayhem — with its healthy splashes of camp and provocation — undeniably has heart and feeling at its core. Love can be found in the DNA of each song here, whether it’s delivered and experienced in seductive, platonic, self-centred or romantic forms. In this context, Die With a Smile — with its markedly stripped-back arrangement and emphasis on the duo’s vocal evocations — provides a fitting final ode to being in the intoxicating, heady throes of love. Mayhem celebrates the artist’s originality and love for art that takes its creator into different lanes. For Gaga, now 38, the past decade has seen her explore different facets of her artistry in both music and film, to varying degrees of critical acclaim. Above all, she has remained a key figure within the mainstream pop space — and with Mayhem, Lady Gaga has undeniably repositioned herself as one of its most important artists.
Sosefina Fuamoli
FOLK
Last Call
Steve Tilston
Talking Elephant
If, as the title hints, Last Call turns out to be the final album of original compositions from one of the British folk scene’s most celebrated singer-songwriters and acoustic guitarists, it’ll be a most worthy conclusion to a distinguished half-century-plus recording career. All 11 tracks, including an impeccable closing take of a traditional standard, testify to Steve Tilston’s artistry, from exquisite old-school finger-picking and the excellence of his chordal work to his beautifully crafted and poetic lyrics, arresting arrangements and vocal phrasing. His superior skill as a solo guitarist surfaces in the title track. Elsewhere, judicious backing from a baroque string quartet and subtle contributions from a team of other trusted accompanists on a range of instruments, add the finishing touches to what could be Tilston’s last batch of fresh songs – some of which equal the best in his distinguished back catalogue. The variety of subject matter that alludes to friendship & love, childhood & death, landscape & history, is as varied as the musical feels, which include folk, blues, classical and global colouring.
Tony Hillier
INDIE ROCK
Universe Room
Guided By Voices
GBV Inc.
Robert Pollard has the opposite of writer’s block. Universe Room is the 41st album the lo-fi bard of Dayton, Ohio, has released with Guided By Voices, and the 18th in the past decade alone. Sometimes he puts out three a year. Perhaps he should slow down a bit and get a more stringent internal editor. Prior to its release he said, “I trimmed down the songs so that there wasn’t a lot of repetition, so you get a lot of sections that happen only once or twice.” Unfortunately this translates as: “Often wilfully oblique and a bit piecemeal.” The ponderous, slack-stringed acoustic guitar instrumental The Well Known Soldier and the flamenco-tinged Fran Cisco are among the least essential GBV songs in its catalogue. What’s frustrating is that there are some fine-yet-wasted moments here. I Will Be A Monk winningly re-purposes mid-period minor-key R.E.M. while Independent Animal has the perfect combo of earworm melody and indie-rock jangle that’s reminiscent of his best work on 1994’s classic Bee Thousand. Alas, he tosses both songs away after little more than 60 seconds each. Still, there’ll be another album along in a moment.
Barry Divola
ELECTRONIC/POP
Hallucinating Love
Maribou State
Ninja Tune
After earning a loyal following with their organic take on electronica and downtempo, British duo Maribou State (Chris Davids and Liam Ivory) return with their triumphant third album Hallucinating Love. It arrives seven years after 2018’s Kingdoms In Colour, having been put on hold in 2023 while Davids recovered from a rare brain condition. Here, the pair draw on shared struggles to create their most sincere and polished body of work to date. These are richly textured productions effortlessly straddling joy and melancholy, brimming with jazzy bass lines, filtered guitars and emotive orchestral flourishes amid their swirling earworms. Holly Walker lends her diamond-sharp vocals to the highly danceable Otherside; fellow Londoner Andreya Triana elevates the organ-led neo soul of All I Need with her breathy swoon, and the hip-hop-esque groove of Blackoak shows off the duo’s knack for a catchy vocal hook. Sticking to a dependable formula in lieu of experimentation may leave some fans yearning for realms unexplored, though it’s difficult to criticise Maribou State for honing their signature sound when the results are this enjoyable. Well worth the wait.
Henry Johnstone
JAZZ
Avicennia
Carl Dewhurst
Independent
The versatile Sydney guitarist Carl Dewhurst plays with distinction in many contexts, from mainstream through to modern and indeed free jazz. Avicennia is a revelation, affording for me at least a fascinating insight for the first time into the workings of Dewhurst’s fertile musical mind. He is playing here with three equally gifted improvisers: Lisa Parrott, whose cut-through sound on alto saxophone is dripping with New York authority; Cameron Undy, whose electric bass mastery shows his deep knowledge of the great players of this instrument, giving the album much of its innovative character; and the superb drummer Alex Inman Hislop, whose hip drum kit sound and beautiful time-feels underlie the album’s success. Seven Dewhurst compositions are played plus one Charlie Parker tune in Ornithology. Four great musicians have come into the studio determined above all to play freely and express themselves in the now. The sound quality of Dewhurst’s guitar is exceptional, and the spontaneity in the music palpable. Avicennia is one of the most satisfying albums I’ve heard for some time.
Eric Myers
Album reviews for week of March 7 2025:
ROCK/ROOTS
Straight Into the Sun
The Cruel Sea
Universal Music Australia
It’s been 24 years since The Cruel Sea last released an album. It seems almost inconceivable that this could be so, and yet it is; one of the great and unique Australian bands of its time, which produced a quickfire recorded output in a little over a decade — and then nothing more for almost a quarter century, tumbleweeds upon the sonic landscape that this seminal outfit bruised and bloodied in its own rag-tag image. During those halcyon days between 1990 and 2001, the Sydney-born quintet released a half dozen long-players, three of which blew the lid off charts and ARIA award ceremonies alike; the band itself swelled remarkably seamlessly from a surf-inspired instrumental group to a genuine, thinking man’s rock ‘n’ roll ensemble, never settling for the mediocre or the accepted, but hollowing out its own distinct version of how the music should be at that time and in that place. And so now, in this time and this place, a new record, whose existence is built off a 2023 reunion tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its storied and best-selling set, The Honeymoon Is Over. That album is titled Straight Into the Sun, and The Cruel Sea is back; strangely, it’s like it never left at all. And it’s not about capturing something that existed once, years ago. No: this record seems more about realising a maturity that comes from having lived, and the playing reflects this.
Album No.7 is a record built around a vibe, so to speak, as opposed to being pushed into your head. Said vibe is low-key and redolent of a balmy Sunday afternoon in 2025; five blokes with a shared history reconvening in order to mine a new time and place. Inserted into the middle of proceedings, and thus acting as the record’s centrefold, is a pair of instrumental tunes — Razorback and Storm Bird – which hark back to the band’s roots prior to the fortuitous addition of Tex Perkins on vocals in the late 1980s. The former is a laid-back, Tony Joe White-esque swampy jam imbued with cuts of slide under jangling guitar, while Storm Bird slows it down further while bringing to mind — in a more lethargic fashion — the surf-style guitar of initial band inspiration The Ventures, namely the needle-sharp guitar and eerie keys underpinned with bass like a gently beating heart. The loss of linchpin multi-instrumentalist James Cruickshank in 2015 would have seemed a proper endpoint for the band, but long-time Cruickshank friend and band admirer Matt Walker has stepped admirably into the void. Alongside veteran members Perkins, Dan Rumour (guitar), Ken Gormly (bass) and Jim Elliott (drums), Walker brings a vibrancy to the likes of the shimmering You Shine, the contemporary blues feel of Waste Your Time and the slide-drenched opener, How Far I’d Go. This 10-track album proves that, in the grand scheme of things, the passing of 24 years means nothing; this is the sound of The Cruel Sea doing exactly what it needs to do, and doing it well.
Samuel J. Fell
CLASSICAL
My Place
Crux Duo
ABC Classic
This is the story of two transplanted Australians who divide their lives between several Australian cities and East Coast USA. Such is the universality of contemporary music these days that it is virtually impossible to distinguish which of the eight pieces on this attractive and eclectic program are American and which are Australian; four of each, actually, with three women composers, too. The best known are Bernstein’s ebullient 1942 Clarinet Sonata and Elena Kats-Chernin’s 1996 Russian Rag — already an Australian classic, and good to see it in another of its myriad guises. Two short pieces by Adelaide-based composer Anne Cawrse provide moments of poetic reflection, as does Martin Bresnick’s My Resting Place, a moving testament to his Jewish heritage. Every listener will be able to hum along with Erik Griswold’s engaging take on Danny Boy, in which Lisa Moore shows her vocal-dramatic chops. Lloyd Van’t Hoff’s solo warbling of Nick Russoniello’s dawn birdsong is rhapsodic. Although this pair has only been playing together as Crux Duo since 2023, the uniformity and assuredness of the ensemble here is exemplary.
Vincent Plush
COUNTRY/FOLK
The Purple Bird
Bonnie “Prince” Billy
No Quarter
When someone goes to Nashville to record, it naturally leads to assumptions. Will Oldham — who trades under the Bonnie “Prince” Billy moniker — has been what you’d call country-adjacent his whole career, but The Purple Bird was recorded with Nashville producer David Ferguson and features many local musicians and co-writers. While songs such as the bar-room lament Tonight With The Dogs I’m Sleeping wear a big hat and boots, and sighing pedal steel and sawing fiddles litter the record, Oldham isn’t constricted by the form. Boise, Idaho rubs shoulders with Jimmy Webb, not just for the placename in the title, but for the haunting tale of regret, while Guns Are For Cowards takes a more Randy Newman-like approach, satirising the gun-rights crowd by adopting their gung-ho attitude, then twisting it. Oldham’s recent output has been both warmer and more outward-looking; that continues in the tolerance anthem Turned To Dust (Rolling On), and in The Water’s Fine, about the cleansing goodness of getting out in nature. He once sang I See A Darkness, but now appears to be looking for the light.
Barry Divola
JAZZ
Elementa
Callum Allardice
Earshift Music
This album is a companion work to NZ guitarist Callum Allardice’s previous album Cinematic Light Orchestra, which was released in March 2024. Elementa was recorded at speed, over 1½ days, and features Allardice’s unadorned brilliance, this time without the distraction of a huge orchestra. Allardice has the unique ability — derived I think from rock music — to make the guitar sing. To put Allardice into context, the Australian guitarist most comparable to him is probably James Muller, whose unsurpassed technical ability is universally applauded. Allardice is playing here with three musicians only: Luke Sweeting (piano), Tom Botting (bass) and Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa (drums), all of whom possess the brilliance necessary to give the jazz/rock fusion genre a solid workout. Elementa certainly captures the majesty which characterises that well-trodden genre. Seven impressive Allardice compositions are played, bolstered by interesting comments revealing the composer’s inspirations. It can join recent releases such as Chris Foster Trio’s In Motion and Ross McHenry’s Waves, which indicate that, despite predictions of its early demise, fusion is still alive and well.
Eric Myers
BLUES ROCK/ROOTS
Bloom
Larkin Poe
Tricki-Woo Records
Nashville-based sibling duo Larkin Poe, winners of last year’s Grammy for contemporary blues, has shifted its dynamic with original studio album No 6. Sisters Rebecca (guitars, lead vocals) and Megan (lap steel, vocals) Lovell now make up a fully fledged songwriting partnership, with Megan also contributing equally in the vocal and instrumental departments. Named for a distant relative — a cousin of 19th century American mystery writer Edgar Allan Poe — Larkin Poe is rounded out by a robust rhythm section and is produced by Rebecca’s partner, Tyler Bryant. The songs on Bloom pivot on expansive blues hooks generated by Megan’s lap steel, particularly on opener Mockingbird, the punningly titled Bluephoria, Easy Love Part 1, and full-tilt rockers Pearls and Nowhere Fast. The tempos ease slightly for token ballads Little Bit and Easy Love Part 2, though both feature epic solos from Megan, and countrified duets You Are the River and Bloom Again. The centrepiece of the album is If God Is a Woman (The Devil Is Too), a menacing declamatory blues in which Rebecca snarls: “Heaven and hell hath no fury / Better watch what you do.” She’s not all idle threats, though; there’s humour too: “I turn water into wine … gonna drink that wine.”
Phil Stafford
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