THE AVETT BROTHERS: TRUE SADNESS (2016)
1) Ain't No Man; 2) Mama, I
Don't Believe; 3) No Hard Feelings; 4) Smithsonian; 5) You Are Mine; 6) Satan
Pulls The Strings; 7) True Sadness; 8) I Wish I Was; 9) Fisher Road To
Hollywood; 10) Victims Of Life; 11) Divorce Separation Blues; 12) May It Last.
Sooner or later, the Flying Electronic Monster
catches up with all of us — there may be times when not using synthesizers for
your records is seen as a bold act of artistic defiance, and then there are
times when not having a synthesizer on board is like going out on the street
with no pants on. (Not that going out on the street without your pants on
cannot be seen as a bold act of artistic defiance, but then, how many people
around will really be able to tell if you intentionally left them at home or
just forgot to put them on? Same with the synthesizers). Anyway, while Seth
does use them sparingly, the very first track (ʽAin't No Manʼ) opens with the
we-wiil-rock-you sound of a drum machine, and then electronics are all over
ʽYou Are Mineʼ and all over ʽSatan Pulls The Stringsʼ and... uh... wait a
minute... well, actually, I guess that is all.
Admittedly, the electronics work — Rick Rubin does a good job
integrating them into the band's overall sound, and I can certainly understand
them trying out something a little different from the usual mope-country sound
(and there might be just a hint of jealousy here, at the relative success of
The Black Keys doing the same thing). All of these three songs are good. ʽAin't
No Manʼ is a catchy country-pop tune with a cute bassline, getting by solely on
the energy of the rhythm section and the gospel-style backing vocals. ʽYou Are
Mineʼ opens with a simple banjo line, but then quickly becomes
techno-psychedelic, with multiple electronic layers over acoustic piano and
vice versa — and some beautiful vocal harmonies, McCartney-style. Finally,
ʽSatan Pulls The Stringsʼ is an experimental arrangement of a traditional tune,
sort of a 50/50 merger between a country-blues and an acid techno track, which
works because they choose some particularly evil-sounding synth tones,
perfectly adequate for a robotic vision of Satan pulling the strings, I guess.
But never worry, these are just minor brushes
across a canvas that largely stays the same — just because they dragged in a
few extra chips and cables changes nothing about the fact that Scott and Seth
Avett still behave as a pair of intelligent, heart-broken, world-weary farm
hands who'd rather mess up their lives so they can sing about it than
straighten these lives out because what fun is there with a straightened out
life? The album's single most memorable tune is ʽSmithsonianʼ, which lays out
their life philosophy as simply and straightforwardly as never before:
"Call the Smithsonian, I've made a discovery / Life ain't forever and
lunch isn't free / Loved ones will break your heart with or without you / Turns
out we don't get to know everything". Okay, so this really used to be
their creed all along, but sometimes it helps to set aside the metaphors for a
moment and just go for some blunt wording — and few people these days can spell
out basic (but true) banalities with the same pleasantly nonchalance as the
Avett Brothers.
Commenting on the soft acoustic ballads is an
impossibility (they just sound like any other soft acoustic ballad ever written
by these guys), but I was pleasantly surprised by the increased level of
diversity — apart from the electronics, we have some really complex
arrangements (on the title track, for instance, where choppy electric chords
mingle with jangly acoustic picking, organs and strings), some Latin bounce
(ʽVictims Of Lifeʼ with samba elements — should have invited Paul Simon on that
one, as it sounds not entirely unlike ʽMe And Julioʼ), and a full-out
Straussian waltz arrangement on the album closer ʽMay It Lastʼ that flows in
and out of a baroque-pop construction, making this arguably their most complex
studio creation up to date (a good structural analogy would be something like
Buffalo Springfield's ʽBroken Arrowʼ); and the complexity is well deserved,
since the song does end the album on a friendly note — sadness and melancholia,
yes, but mixed with a note of support ("there is a sea, and I am your
captain...").
On the whole, I could even call this
«progress», if the notion did not sound so ridiculous when applied to the
Avetts — who had always been perfectly happy to be the modern AC/DC of folk-
and country-rock as long as they still thought they had something to say. So
the sonic discoveries of True Sadness
are not really an indication of the band expanding its horizons — most likely,
they were just introduced so that they could not be accused of making a vain point out of sticking to the formula
(the way Angus Young proudly asserts
how they put out not 11, but 12 albums that sound the same). It's more like,
hey, a synthesizer? A drum machine? Sure, why not — who the hell are we to say no? It's not like God ever
told us to stick to guitar and banjo. It's an attitude that seems likeable, and
reason enough to give the record a thumbs up, even if I probably will treat it in the
future just like any other Avett Brothers album.
Oh, and, also for the record, I do like the
idea of calling it True Sadness —
few of these songs sound proverbially
sad (as in, emotionally overdone and making you feel like you're standing in a
salty puddle already), but they weave their little nets of personal
dissatisfaction and trouble in oblique ways: a well-placed lyric here, a single
chord change there, without wallowing in misery or throwing a fit. They can
even get sad on something technically upbeat (ʽVictims Of Lifeʼ), and though
they're far from the first artist to be able to do that, they just might be the
first ones to draw attention to this through the very title of the album.
Although in doing so, they bring back accusations of vanity — ain't it a little
presumptious to insist that it is your
record that represents «true sadness» and not, say, Conor Oberst's, or Bon
Iver's? That's Satan pulling the strings for you, brothers...
"A drum machine? Sure, why not — who the hell are we to say no?" Wow! Someone must have played them a J.J. Cale album!
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