Review Summary: Straight from the Hallmark Store to your hearts
It’s been rumored here and there that their latest album might be the Avett Brothers bidding adieu as a musical act. Granted, that’s just a rumor, but I keep asking myself: If we were to think of this album as a farewell of sorts, would it be the goodbye we’d want to hear? Should this in fact be the closing of the door after more than twenty years, would this be the coda that their fans would deserve? It would certainly be in character to bow out with a fundamentally kindhearted little wave out to the audience, and a reassurance that we are loved. That kind of sentimentalism is so well within the Avett Brothers’ wheelhouse, paired up with their comfortably trodden existential aching, that any explorations into more lighthearted territory would probably end up a little jarring. Of course that's exactly the territory we end up in on their most recent album, which, inexplicably (or perhaps portentously), is the one they've decided to self-title for the first time since their EP debut. Maybe we could wish that their purported swan song had a little more than that amount of effort or verve, and could be perhaps more fleshed out or focused.
Or maybe we’re taking exactly the wrong tack, considering we’re talking about mere rumors. If this is merely the latest evolution for our most-beloved veteran Americana act, maybe here we see the Avett Brothers playing around a bit, looking for a couple new possibilities to explore, maybe willing to falter here and there. Love of a Girl certainly sticks out; whether like a sore thumb or like a bright yellow dandelion might vary according to how you approach the rest of this album. Certainly it’s a bright spot in an otherwise wistful, often melancholy stretch of songs that fit slightly uncomfortably in the rest of the Avett Brothers’ discography. Country Kid, alongside Orion’s Belt also wants nothing more than to live up to its title amidst all the indie-folk, and I can’t quite justify them like I can Love of a Girl, but at least it sticks with me more than the rest of these milquetoast melodies and wistful pap. Yes, these harmonies are lovely as ever and those string sections just pull at the heartstrings but this is music that just bleeds tap water all over the place and tries to convince you it's red.
Maybe that’s more harsh than intended. I don’t hate this, if only because it’s impossible to hate an album that is this well-meaning and inoffensive. Sitting with my wife and listening to this album was a wonderful way to spend an evening, and we both had a generally positive perception of the album, especially as something shared with someone you deeply care about. And that’s probably the best context possible to listen to this album. For their whole career this has been a band that sees the value in a simple human connection, a transcendentalist openness towards the world and everyone in it, and I’ve always genuinely respected them for that. But the trite platitude that opens this album gives away its entire Emerson-lite schtick, and the religious thread tying the whole thing together often feels clumsy, if, ultimately, sincere. Paired with the tacked-on forays into light country and the ersatz Subterranean Homesick Blues of Love of a Girl, and the general tone of wan, syrupy sentimentality of the rest of the album, the latest from the Avett Brothers ends up feeling about as inspired as its title.
