The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You

Album Reviews • Tuesday October 6th, 2009 • 9:33 am

Too many people think that a Southern drawl makes one sound a dolt, or slow. Even the (formerly) shrewd politico John Edwards had trouble escaping this, as have the likes of, say, Dolly Parton and Jessica Simpson.

Well, forget that last one. Poor example. But then, really, it’s not – she’s a smart businesswoman, a player, the maker of a brand who’s seen it blow up (if in her face). Likewise, the Carolina-bred Avett Brothers know exactly what they’re doing today. Now 10 albums into their career, they’re hardly just budding. Even so, they’ve found a formula for taking their act to the next plane on this crowded postmodern soundscape.

The Avetts’ sound is harder to pin down than a wraith. What they’ve birthed with I and Love and You could readily be described as jouncy, Southern-fried Beatles pop. Thing is, they’re doing it while retaining their homespun fervor and flair, patented over the years by playing a bevy of raucous shows. This is indubitably by both their own careful crafting and that of the one they found to helm this first big-label project: Rick Rubin, hirsute production wizard of both Beasties and J. Cash records. Or did he find them? Rubin’s hands laying on any record can double as defibrillator paddles.

Not that that’s what the Avetts needed at all – oh, they are very much alive. Kicking. Pulsating.

Growing, learning, feeling out this life and this road, that’s what brothers Scott and Seth are up to – look at titles such as “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise,” “Tin Man,” “Incomplete and Insecure,” and “Kick Drum Heart,” and try to tell anyone the Avetts aren’t groping for more, for what’s next, for not just “love” and “you” but truth and meaning. “I hope we’re not done growing,” Scott said to their hometown-ish Charlotte Observer. “You’re never free from turmoil, you know? There’s not really any icing on the cake.”

From what they told the Observer, Rubin had them – and bassist Bob Crawford and cellist Joe Kwon – go from one or two takes per song to up to fifteen. This is concerted, calculated stuff. It’s also borderline-perfect in tone, feel, and word, in its sheer artistry. The Avetts eschewed the banjo for the piano here, and took cracks from some fans in the process, but they also told the Observer that the songs simply developed like that, on piano in lieu of banjo and guitar.

The bros trade off on vocals, also proving when they do come together (and that’s often) that no harmony can top the familial – yea, the sibling – kind. This has not changed in their sound. For what has evolved for this band, in both sound and sight (the shaved faces, the styled hair), they are unapologetic: “They said, ‘I hope that you will never change’/ I went and cut my hair/ They said, ‘Don’t take your business to the big time’/ I bought us tickets there” (“Slight Figure of Speech”).

Quite literally, these Avett boys mean biznass.

From “The Perfect Space”: “I wanna have pride, like my mother has/ And not like the kind in the Bible that turns you bad/ I wanna have friends that I can trust/ That love me for the man I am, not the man I was.” You might think these words veer to the cusp of sounding like a dewy-eyed Promise Keepers anthem, but somehow from these golden throats the sentiments ring visceral and ragged. These boys are feelers – and that’s okay!

This album’s a man’s album, and it’s an emotional man’s disc too. (Bear in mind the Avetts’ last LP was titled Emotionalism.) Their diverse, category-damning tunes blend effortlessly into an entirely cohesive amalgam of sleek, masculine ballads and rockers both (but mostly ballads). There’s everything from “And It Spread,” which can only be described as seamless country-punk (Billie Joe Armstrong, you’re on watch), to “Kick Drum Heart,” replete with everything from vocal cord-shredding yelps to hushed harmonizing and twinkling piano melody. Even an ambling teen-love lament makes its way in, titled – what else? – “Laundry Room” (“Teach me how to use the love that people say you made”).

No one else makes music today like these Avetts and their mercenaries, the two trusted friends backing them. Here hang harmonies sweet as heaven, and songs catchy as sin. Take a bite.