Jason Isbell confronts 'monsters in the closet'

When Nashville resident Jason Isbell dubbed his latest album "The Nashville Sound," he wasn't just picking a fight with the powers-that-be that have redefined mainstream country as a kind of suburban rock-lite, full of cartoons in cowboy hats posing on pickup trucks. He was also embracing a possible alternative future for the classic sounds forged in the city during the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

"I wanted to do things that were technologically possible but weren't attempted on those records," he says. On one track, "If We Were Vampires," he created an eerie sonic backdrop by propping three hollow-body guitars against turned-up amplifiers, and then manipulating the feedback to create a chord with the volume faders. "You could have done