Jason Isbell To Release Something More Than Free on July 17

Jason Isbell has announced his follow-up to his universally critically acclaimed Southeastern, an album titled Something More Than Free. The new album will be released via Southeastern Records on July 17. Dave Cobb, who also helmed Southeastern as well as projects like Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, produced the 11-song collection, which he and Isbell recorded at Nashville’s Sound Emporium. This will be Isbell’s fifth solo album.

“Everything was played initially with multiple musicians, pretty much the whole band, right off the bat,” Isbell explained to Radio.com about the recording process on Something More Than Free. “It’s good to have that conversation, because you can really capture some inspired moments.”

There isn’t a ‘theme’ per se on the album, but as Isbell said that through his songwriting he is still “trying to explain relationships between people, and relationships with an individual and his or her past, and the sort of things you trade in to be happy the older you get—I think that’s a big concern on this record.

“There are a lot of instances of some sort of exchange. Exchanging freedom or exchanging something that you thought you had in the past in order to be a happier person in the future.”

The album will feature the throwback country number “If It Takes a Lifetime,” emotional ballad “Flagship” and blues rocker “Palmetto Rose.” The album also includes “24 Frames,” which Isbell unveiled for the first time at the American Songwriter 30th Anniversary Party.