the eagerly anticipated follow up to ‘something more than free’ was released about ten days ago, and i have been pouring through it ever since. a lot of the prerelease talk was about having a harder edge to the material, and that he was going to get a little more political. that didn’t exactly bode too well for me, as i tended to be a bigger fan of his ballads, and of course his ability to spin a tale like nobody’s business. but as he stated in a number of interviews, the last two albums were to a large degree a form of healing – writing about his past addictions and his new marriage. now that he is in a comfortable place in life, he had to find something else to write about. it seems to me that about half the material is written about other people dealing with life’s trials and tribulations, and the other half are his observations of the current state of affairs in our land. i think that it’s the latter where he either nails it or comes up a little flat. ‘if we were vampires’ – a lovely duet with his wife amanda shires – is a song about the prospect of living a long life together, and the inevitable prospect that eventually one them will die first. it is certainly one of my favorites of the album. the final track – ‘something to love’ – is a wonderful song about learning how to play music when he was a kid with his family, and is essentially an ode to their new daughter. the only song i really couldn’t get into was ‘anxiety’, a seven minute epic in the middle of the album that just seems to take all the momentum out of the flow.

overall though, i would say it is similar in quality to his last release from a songwriting standpoint. the 400 unit is in fine form here, and dave cobb is at the producers helm once again, recording in the historic rca nashville sound studio. as their marriage grows, so does the vocal interplay between jason and amanda. maybe not quite up to some of the classic folk or country duets yet, but they are getting there. they are on tour now, and i have some tickets in august. from what i have seen, they take the material to a new level live, and have also been playing some of his older material. ‘whipping post’, by the allman’s, has been a popular encore. go check ’em out.