Jason Isbell Goes Solo on New Album ‘Foxes in the Snow’

Jason Isbell has announced the forthcoming studio album Foxes in the Snow. The record will be Isbell’s first solo acoustic collection, recorded over a five-day period at Electric Lady Studios in New York last October. It is also the first Isbell studio album to not feature his longtime band, the 400 Unit, since his 2007 solo debut, Sirens in the Ditch.

Ahead of the album’s arrival, Isbell released the song “Bury Me,” which begins with him singing a cappella before launching into a plaintive country-folk tale, which makes a light allusion to a past Isbell song (“Live Oak”) and puts forth a novel pronunciation of the word obituary before arriving at a sing-along chorus: “I ain’t no cowboy/But I can ride.”

Little much else is known about Foxes in the Snow, other than the fact that it was recorded with Isbell’s 1940 Martin guitar and that the track list includes titles like “Ride to Robert’s” (about the legendary Nashville honky-tonk?) and “Good While It Lasted” (perhaps a nod to the songwriter’s 2024 split from singer-songwriter Amanda Shires?).

It’s possible that some of those questions could be answered on Isbell’s extensive solo acoustic tour, which begins Feb. 2 in Berlin, a full month before the album’s March 7 release date. In the U.S., the tour will hit cities like Chicago, Washington, D.C., Nashville, and New York, where he’ll set up shop at the Beacon Theatre for two nights.

Foxes in the Snow is the follow-up to 2023’s Weathervanes, which was released shortly after the release of an HBO documentary that chronicled the recording of his 2020 album, Reunions, as well as the building tension in his personal and creative life at the time. 

“When you try to be as honest with people as possible, there is a concession that you have to make,” Isbell told Rolling Stone later that year. “You have to allow more of your personal life to be made public, but I think that works for me.”

Foxes in the Snow tracklist: