Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

Southern rock is a minefield of rebel flags, drinking songs, and dudes yelling "Free Bird!" With Drive-By Truckers, singer-guitarist Jason Isbell learned to embrace some of those clichés; on his gritty, vibrant second solo album, he begins to transcend them. "However Long" personalizes working-class disaffection into a defiant anthem; stormy rocker "Soldiers Get Strange" is almost certainly the best tune ever written about post-traumatic stress disorder; and multiple tales of warm, lonely barrooms and the warm, lonely relationships they breed uncover new truths while traversing well-trod emotional terrain.