When the Avett Brothers announced this past summer that
they’d be releasing a new album in fall of 2013, fans were surprised, excited,
and even a little skeptical over what the band would put out just one short
year after releasing 2012’s The Carpenter.
Fans didn’t have to wait long for their next Avett fix, but the jury’s still
out on what kind of fix it is, exactly.
Magpie and the
Dandelion is the band’s latest effort and is a fine (if boring) addition to
their discography. It sounds great, and there’s nothing on there that’s “bad,”
but what else one would expect from an album produced under industry bigwig
Rick Rubin? Unfortunately, diehard Avett fans would probably rather expect the
unpolished grassroots sound on which the band made its name.
And therein lies the problem. Longtime fans want what they
know, but you can’t live in the past, especially with a band that’s very
interested in embracing its mass-market appeal (see: the Brothers’ Gap ad). So that’s what we’re dealing with here, and that’s the
lens through which this album can be examined.
Magpie opens with
“Open Ended Life,” a very digestible, clean-sounding call to find your own
path. It sets the stage for 10 other digestible, clean-sounding tracks about
similarly safe topics such as cherishing a faithful love interest or dealing
with the challenges of being on the road. The Avett Brothers have been singing
about these topics forever, but the new songs, with their smooth,
neatly-packaged lyrics and instrumentals, seem severely inauthentic next to
earlier works that perhaps once helped an up-and-coming band work through those
very same issues.
There are a couple of nice songs on this album, the standout
being “Apart From Me.” The slow, plucky ballad showcases Scott Avett’s timbre
and Joe Kwan’s cello playing, and plays to every band member’s greatest
strengths. “Another Is Waiting” has already been selected as this album’s
single, and that’s fine. It’s extremely straightforward pop and that definitely
has its place. I predict that it will be a nice addition to the band’s high-energy,
fun live sets (which are absolutely a must-see).
Despite these highlights, there are several moments
throughout the album that stop you in your tracks, if only because they’re…odd.
This includes band mate Bob Crawford’s verse on “Good to You,” a total
snooze-fest that may have been a bone tossed to him for his constant background
support, and “Souls Like the Wheels” which is inexplicably the only live song
on the album. Why is it live? Were the Avett Brothers just trying to fill up
space? Maybe that’s a microcosm of my issue with the album as a whole: that
these songs were just slapped together and released with no overall vision
besides just having another album out.
Magpie is an
enjoyable enough album and is suitable for playing in the background. What this
record lacks is the beautiful harmonies the brothers’ voices are capable of
making, the finger plucking that’s produced by their honest talent, and the
funky edges responsible for the creativity and excitement of some of their best
songs.
Grade: B-
~ Post by Sarah Machajewski
