Southeastern will definitely be making my Pazz & Jop ballot. It's Jason Isbell's most consistent post-Drive-By Truckers album, but it took me a while to get into it. These songs initially felt a little too blandly "confessional" for my taste, but a few spins in the car and a little concentration made me realize how touching and pointed so many of these stripped-down tracks were. Take "Elephant," which is purely fictional, as far as I know, but has such rich, precise detail that it seems based on fact. Regardless, it rips your guts out.
