Song, by Toad

Once again, I prove myself to be unbearably slow when it comes to picking up on a great many bands that everyone else already knows and loves, and here is yet another example. The Avett Brothers used to be on Ramseur Records, home to the superlative Bombadil and Samantha Crain, but have recently signed with a big shiny label, namely Colombia.

I don’t have their Colombia release yet (buy here if you fancy) but I am exploring their older Ramseur stuff and absolutely loving it, as you probably all knew I would.  When I first heard it I though ‘oh, so it’s basically just a bit of a mix of country and bluegrass’ and didn’t listen too carefully.  It only took a couple of listens to realise how good this stuff is though, although it’s nothing that I would describe as ground-breaking.  In fact, I would probably say that it is incredibly fucking simple actually; in many ways there seems to be nothing to it.

That’s the genius though, in a sense.  How can you make music this basic and familiar sound quite so good?  I love this album. Writing basic, straightforward songs is a hell of a knack.  Many bands dress it up a bit, try and twist things a bit too much, but it always comes back down to this: can you write songs that stick in people’s heads, and these lads can, with almost effortless ease.

I am just getting into their other stuff too, which tends to be a little more melancholy, but this is a bubbly, enjoyable album with a sort of easy, confident charm to it.  It’s almost as if the band were winking at you.

The Avett Brothers – Nothing Short of Thankful
The Avett Brothers – At the Beach
The Avett Brothers – Pretty Girl at the Airport

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They may be a bit of a folky band for the most part, but they can produce a mean indie riff when they so choose; see Rosetta Stone and the beginning of Johnny for evidence.

In fact, without changing their sound especially they seem to be able to inconspicuously slip from quirky folk to indie to melodic pop and back, all the while sounding very much like themselves.

I don’t what else I can add to this description.  If there’s a bum note on this record, and there is only one, I would say it was Julian of Norwich which is a sort of English cod-folk and just seems to miss the target.  Maybe it’s because it’s a pastiche of a genre I’m too familiar with to quite pass over the bits where it doesn’t quite click, which I might not notice at all if the style in question were less familiar.

Other than that though, I can’t find anything about this that I don’t like. It’s not heart-caressingly gorgeous exactly, so not something I am going to go gooey over, but for the most part this is just a great big stamp of approval for every single song.  And to make matters even better, I am going to see them at this year’s Pickathon Festival in Portland.

Bombadil – Trip Out West
Bombadil – Johnny

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