A Love Letter to: The Avett Brothers

I don’t claim to be the biggest Avett Brothers fan alive, I don’t own all of their albums, and I didn’t discover them before everyone else. In fact, not being completely in tune with my local music scene at the time, I had about 4 friends tell me about this band before I actually listened to them. The first two songs I heard were Swept Away and S (Untitled), which had been kindly placed on a mixed CD for me while I was living near Hazard, Kentucky in the beginning of January 2006. At the time, I was in the car a ton, both for work and then for when I wanted to drive somewhere and see civilization on the weekends. I listened to these songs over and over ago--the sweet sorrow and beginning of great love in Swept Away, and pure, earnest, and clever devotion of S. But, that was it. I had this small taste of something great, two songs; but as many loves begin, that was all I got.

Finally, a few months later, I got my next taste. I was working that summer with the Appalachia Service Project in Lake City, Tennessee with four other 20-somethings coordinating home repair. This involved massive amounts of time together in the car. Unfortunately for me, my co-worker Amanda and I had vastly different music tastes. She was far more interested in top-40 rap and the Rent soundtrack (shoot me now) than Alligator by The National, an album I had become obsessed with, and an album that fit the humid country nights of my summer. But, one day as I sifted through her ipod, seemingly in vain, an entry for The Avett Brothers caught my eye. Finally, I was reunited, and that summer we listened to Mignonette approximately 400 times as we drove around the mountains of eastern Tennessee. S became our anthem for the summer. The joy of At the Beach buoyed us during long days. Please Pardon Yourself helped us wallow in our own sorrow when needed. Signs recounted a personal moment I had in the final semester of college that I still dwelled on. It was quite serendipitous, finding this ranging and extravagant album that we could all agree on, allowing us to forgo the compromise of a mix between The National and Rent. This, coupled with a post-summer concert at The North Carolina Museum of Art outdoor pavilion was enough to send me head over heels.

After returning to civilization in the Fall of 2006, I began to devour the rest of the Avetts catalog. First, was A Carolina Jubilee. The first song was the essence of the Avett Brothers at the time. The Traveling Song doesn’t have a story, it’s more of a call to action for the Avetts and their fans. The rest of the album is similarly upbeat and hard-working—the boys always sound as if they’re trying their damnedest to please us. Sure, there are missteps here (I personally could do without Love Like the Movies and Me and God), but the album as a whole stands up on banjo and effort. You even see preludes to their most recent album in The Offering and Sorry Man. It’s less polished but just as honest.

Emotionalism, released in 2007, was a different beast altogether. I’ve heard a lot of people bemoan the change in sound of I and Love and You, but the real change happened here. I think it was just that without a big name like Rick Rubin, nobody noticed it. Shame is one of the best songs the Avett Brothers have ever recorded, a worthy homage to Brian Wilson. It starts off as a normal Avett Brothers ballad replete with banjo and all, but about 2:25 in becomes completely different as they bridge and then float into an organ induced free-fall before they pull it back into the chorus. I knew at the moment I heard this song that the Avetts were becoming a better band, and a band that I hadn’t quite expected them to be. They didn’t let off either, jumping right back into it with Paranoia in B Major, introducing the piano that would become so prevalent on their next album, and mixing it in with their usual vigor. Then, again, almost out of nowhere we get the three part suites of Salina and Pretty Girl from Chile (which would be better if they left off the answering machine bit at the end). The rest of the album is above average Avetts fare, but these songs portended the changes that were to come on I and Love and You.

I wouldn’t lie to you and tell you it sounds the same—I and Love and You is very, very different than any other Avetts album. There is a ton of piano on here, and a lot less banjo than any other recording of theirs. But they are changing. This is good. Would you really be satisfied with a retread of Four Thieves Gone or Mignonette? They are growing, and while we could postulate about their personal growth to no end, we can actually see and hear the tangible musical advancement here. And I’m not talking about learning to play the fiddle or banjo faster than before (not possible?). The song-writing here is much, much better.

The title track builds for five minutes before revealing the climax, an exercise in patience and discretion. And it Spread is a typical Avetts rocker, but is tighter than anything the put down on Four Thieves Gone. Laundry Room is my personal favorite. Normally, Scott and Seth are able to get away with things in their lyrics that I think other bands cannot. But here, they craft a song that somehow walks that fine line between trite and sadly beautiful. On top of that, we even get a brief respite into old Avetts in the closing instrumental. The album is a tightly packed 51 minutes, and there’s a lot to take in here. Their previous work was generally scattered but brilliant, here it’s shined down to an even excellence. The high points may not be as loud, but they’re still as high.

But, in the end, I suspect that the lamentations I hear are not because of any dislike of this new album, but more because we are must now share the Avett Brothers with everyone else. Some felt like they got in on the ground floor with this one, seeing the Avetts with 20 other people, sharing it by word of mouth with their closest friends. Now, they sell out shows across the country and play the late-night tv circuit. I’m happy for them. And we don’t have to “love them and set them free,” they’re still ours too. If I want “old” Avetts, I’ve still got those albums, and I’m happy they were made, just like I’m happy they’re changing and making new records. This love isn’t ending, it’s different, it’s growing.