An ode to a lovely city, or a nasty syndrome? We report, you decide.
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[7.09]
Jonathan Bradley: …Syndrome, or is this Isbell longing for his Southern Comfort Zone? He’s sounding fluffier than in his Truckers days, but that suits him fine — alt Southern rock melting into alt country. “I’ve heard love songs make a Georgia man cry” is an opening lyric I can’t believe he hadn’t already used.
[7]
Anthony Easton: The tightness of this — tightness in that it comes in under three minutes, tightness in how the music shears and waves in accordance to the metaphor, and tightness like a thick cord preventing the full beating of the art, marks a remarkable efficiency. That he twins this efficiency with a paradoxical open vocal and closed lyrics suggest the best kind of sophisticated heartbreak.
[10]
Edward Okulicz: Wouldn’t be the darkest thing on Southeastern if it was literally about the syndrome. But maybe the girl Isbell’s got faith in is bottle-shaped to keep him sane through the long nights through a tour up north. Or maybe the song is sung as a goodbye to a habit the narrator hopes he’s kicked because of the girl. I don’t know but it’s a ripper of a song whatever: verses that recall the longing of a lonely drunk, plaintive choruses that drip with the longing of separation and a poetry winding through the whole thing, melody and lyrics.
[9]
Alfred Soto: Isbell’s well-regarded new solo album boasts songs as tuneful and well-observed as this but those reject rhythm sections as an encumbrance — this from veteran of a band like Drive-By Truckers, who weren’t Booker T but at least pulverized. He should have dropped the drums and Mellotron. “Stockholm” is like the rest of this good album; its melodies settle like dust on a table. If he’d released “Relatively Easy” skeptics might understand the fuss.
[5]
Iain Mew: Maybe it’s listening in December, but there’s something comfortingly familiar about the waltzing pace, something about the weary joining together of voices in a “frozen old city of silver and stone” miles from home, clinging onto each other with only hope and possibly alcohol to ward off the chill. It makes me think “Fairytale of Stockholm” would be as apt a title.
[8]
Josh Langhoff: Thompson Square, who never hesitate to call what they’re wearing an outfit, told a similar story this year in their piano ballad “I Can’t Outrun You.” It’s got flatter language and ten times the gloop and I think I prefer it to “Stockholm” because we’re talking songs, not short stories. “Stockholm” is still pretty good — “tied up the keys in the folds of your hair,” wow — but the vocals sound fuzzy where they should cut, and the big instrumental break should be huge. Right, it’s alt-country. The genre that facilitated Isbell’s tremendous cancer ballad “Elephant” meets its limits here.
[6]
Rebecca A. Gowns: A lonely and bittersweet love song; this man’s in the thralls of Stockholm syndrome. The details are as beautiful as they are cold, like the “frozen old city of silver and stone.” Altogether, it’s a great effect, but I’m also kept skimming along the top of the song instead of diving into it. He asks to be let go — repeatedly, but too politely — it would be one thing if he was pleading, but the way that it’s delivered is cool and resigned. A nice song, but something’s holding it back.
[7]
Will Adams: The songwriting’s tight, the lyrics are sharp, but a story as riveting as “Stockholm” requires some more heft behind it. Only the skipping triple meter puts in the work; the vocals and the mixing sound as if they’ve just awoken from an afternoon nap.
[6]
Crystal Leww: This is lovely, but I can’t help but wonder what it’d be like if it was only Kim Richey on the vocals. She overpowers Isbell in the final line of the song, and manages to convey the kind of wist necessary for the song’s story better in those final three or four seconds than Isbell does throughout.
[5]
Brad Shoup: The waltz setting was a wonderful move… the swoon sets up the ballroom buzz of the middle eight (something lesser acts might’ve made the whole song) so well. I’m a rusty reader, so it took a while to position Isbell against the ships weighing anchor. But that purposeful lilt cradles most of his carefully wrought phrases, which hit harder as the song unfolds. (Do Georgia men not cry? I’m on Twitter now, and I can tell you it’s been a rough couple months for the Bulldogs.) He does well creating a grey Stockholm of the mind, but I still prefer Veronica Maggio’s more native rendering. On the other hand, there’s a girl waiting, and she permeates, so a resignation breaking makes the most sense here.
[7]
Mallory O’Donnell: Lovely and too-brief wistful ode cleverly alluding to the titular syndrome. Other artists would have made this a seven-minute epic, the difference with Isbell is he lets it come in and out so gracefully that it takes a couple spins to start making you cry. Gorgeous.
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