Former Drive-By Truckers member Jason Isbell will release his follow-up to 2013’s massively successful Southeastern next week, and today the beautiful thing is streaming in full. Something More Than Free is a heavy record that projects the kind of sadness that comes along with feeling unfulfilled. Isbell’s characters search for satisfaction where they see fit, and he chronicles them with the loving words of a quiet watcher, someone looking out for you when no one else is. It’s a record made to be played when you’re feeling fragile, open, and willing to have a stranger’s words cradle you. And Isbell’s do, even if you can’t necessarily identify with the bygones that he sings about. There are dozens of lyrically perfect moments to be found throughout this record, but for me the earliest and hardest-hitting arrives in the chorus of “24 Frames.” Isbell sings: “You thought God was an architect, now you know/ He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow/ And everything you built, it’s all for show.” Here’s to recognizing the futility of existence and willing yourself to keep going. Listen to Something More Than Free below.