The Avett Brothers
I and Love and You
Pop
2.5 of 5 stars
Concord’s The Avett Brothers have been many things over the course of their nearly 10-year recording career.
They’ve been a highly frenetic and hopelessly romantic bluegrass duo, pushing the genre to the edge of its bombastic power.
They’ve been a meagerly equipped but nevertheless fantastic rockabilly group, making up for a lack of instruments with a wealth of charm.
They’ve been a bare-bones folk pair, deftly combining exquisitely emotional songwriting with striking melody.
But one thing Scott and Seth Avett have never been before is boring. And on the band’s Rick Rubin-produced major-label debut, that’s exactly what they are.
I and Love and You is the Avetts’ most straightforward full-length to date, 13 songs’ worth of country-leaning chamber pop that all but completely leaves behind the band’s trademark vivacity.
In fact, black marks such as the oppressively vapid Ben Folds impression of “It Goes On and On” and the uninventive call-and-response melancholy of “Ill With Want” make you wonder whether Scott and Seth were even really trying.
But as you dig deeper, the truth reveals itself to be something more troubling. Confronted with the pressure of a big-deal recording contract, the two have whitewashed their sound, arriving at a product that’s void of anything objectionable but that also lacks emotional resonance.
On “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise” the band dumbs down to radio-ready piano balladry. As the Avetts babble meaninglessly about dreams just out of reach, piano, strings and organ swell blandly into a chorus that’s nothing but forced grandeur.
This thoroughly played piano-band shtick along with a collection of limp stripped-back throwaways make up the majority of the album. The latter folk-by-numbers strum-alongs feature promising lyrical premises never really brought to fruition and poorly developed arrangements that pale in comparison to the aching melodies of the band’s two Gleam EPs.
However, there are a few moments when the Avetts’ newly copped techniques actually work. The title track uses a beautifully baroque piano part and an insistently striding rhythm to power an incredibly moving journey song.
“That woman she’s got eyes that shine, like a pair of stolen polished dimes,” the Avetts sing, presenting a burning image of a woman who drives the speaker to call upon a distant city.
And while other goodies such as buoyant love songs “January Wedding” and “Kick Drum Heart” ensure that I and Love and You isn’t without some rewards, it’s the no-holds-barred emotionality of that second song that this record needs a whole lot more of.
“It’s not the chase I love; it’s following you,” the band sings before repeating the title until it becomes a jubilant scream. It’s an unrestrained expression of incredible feeling that communicates easily.
For most of the group’s new outing it seems as though this passion is all used up. In the title track the Avetts claim that the words “I” and “love” and “you” have become difficult to say.
But it’s not the saying part they’re having trouble with. It’s the making us believe it.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
