Bledsoe: Avett Brothers' big-label break not their best

By Wayne Bledsoe
Knoxville.com
Posted October 9, 2009 at 6:01 p.m.
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The Avett Brothers are set to take a style of Americana music mainstream, but the group's new album doesn't live up to the band's previous releases.

"I & Love & You," The Avett Brothers (American)

There's a lot riding on the Avett Brothers' "I & Love & You." The release takes the scrappy North Carolina band from being one of the best acoustic underground acts in Americana music to an act that just might give Spin, Rolling Stone and just about every other self-proclaimed musical tastemaker from above the Mason-Dixon that "something-is-happening-but-you-don't-know-what-it-is" feeling. The Avetts are only one of several acts to combine a love of old-time instruments and song styles with modern rock. Yet, it's the Avetts who seem to have the most universal appeal. The trio (singer-songwriters Scott and Seth Avett and bassist Bob Crawford) have whooped and hollered into the hearts of college students and 20-somethings.

After years of recording on a small North Carolina label, the Avetts have jumped to producer Rick Rubin's American Records (distributed by Sony). Yet, Rubin, the man who presented the Beastie Boys to middle America and helped make Johnny Cash into an icon of cool seems to add little to the Avett's arsenal on "I & Love & You." What Rubin might have done is help the Avetts concentrate on songwriting. Despite a few excellent numbers (including the sweet title cut), "I & Love & You" doesn't contain songs as memorable as the group's last few releases. The best cuts on the new disc, "Kick Drum Heart" and "The Perfect Space," only hint at the energy that the band mustered on "Four Theives Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions" and the combination of catchy melody and sensitivity on the album "Emotionalism" and two recent EPs.

Newcomers will probably still be entranced. But for the rest of us, this seems like a placeholder for the next great Avett album.

Wayne Bledsoe may be reached at 865-342-6444 or bledsoew@knoxville.com. He is also the host of "All Over the Road" midnight Saturdays to 4 a.m. Sundays on WDVX-FM.

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