Review: Jason Isbell's band plays focused set of down-home rock

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Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit play Sunday at The State Room in Salt Lake City. Jason Isbell was formally with the Drive-By Truckers but is now promoting his own solo effort.

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The 1970s and the genre of Southern Rock tend to take lots of abuse from the music press, the former lampooned as an era of musical excess and the latter characterized as long-haired rednecks with too many guitars and not enough to say.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, a Muscle Shoals, Ala.,-based quintet, know better. And with each pass through Salt Lake City, their case gets more and more convincing.

Using Isbell's own poetic, literate songbook along with the group's guitar-based musical firepower, the State Room concert left the impression of one of the country's best emerging bands.

Isbell, who famously left new-school Southern rockers Drive-By Truckers in 2006 to go his own way, still draws an audience who want to hear old favorites.

And while Isbell keeps a bottle of Jack Daniel's onstage just like the DBTs do, his new band has created its own footprint. This was the fourth Isbell show along the Wasatch Front since January 2008 -- and the second at The State Room -- and the band sounds tighter each time through.

Isbell's two excellent solo albums, "Sirens of the Ditch" and the eponymously named followup, formed the bulk of Sunday's songbook. Both releases are filled with multiple rootsy gems that would have been great fodder for early '70s rock radio.

A repackaging of the group's second release, Isbell said Sunday, will even contain a '70s classic -- the band's inspired cover of Big Star's "When My Baby's Beside

Opening with "The Blue," a haunting mid-tempo rocker off the group's latest album, Isbell's band had about one-third of the 200-person on its feet and kept them there.

The band's first release, "Sirens of the Ditch," provided many of the show's highlights, including "Chicago Promenade," "Dress Blues" and "Hurricanes and Hand Grenades."

Lead guitarist Browan Lollar effectively traded solos with Isbell -- who is a better guitarist than most singer-songwriters and a much better songwriter than most hot-shot guitar players -- during "Grown" and "Try." The two emulated Southern rock royalty with twin leads and dual melodies during "Decoration Day," which was a crowd favorite.

Lollar also took a star turn while belting out the lyrics of the Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer," which got off to a raucous start thanks to bassist Jimbo Hart's rattling intro. The guitarist also aided the band during a second-set rendition of "Seven-Mile Island," as he beat on a snare drum.

The 30-minute second set was also highlighted by the old Truckers' favorite "Thank God for the TVA" and Isbell's stirring vocals on "Dress Blues."

The raucous second-set finale, "Never Gonna Change," featured a brief instrumental romp through Wilco's "Spiders (Kidsmoke)." The crescendo featured Isbell and Hart jumping up and down in unison to the song's stomping beat.

The group's lone encore was "Danko/Manuel," which is Isbell's haunting tribute to the late members of iconic '70s rockers The Band.

Isbell's ability to illuminate the passion of great musicians is no small feat, but just part of the band's musical imagery, which is wrapped up in the South, but also stretches far beyond. The band is also capable of stretching -- and breaking -- stereotypes about Southern rock bands.