.The Avett Brothers

I and Love and You

North Carolina’s Avett Brothers approach their major-label debut
with a heady adventurousness, perhaps trying to bottle their excellent
and frenetic live show while sticking close to the themes that have
driven the band for a decade. Working with famed producer Rick Rubin,
the band reaches for a bigger and often rowdier sound — including
plenty of piano and a rock ‘n’ roll backbeat with more drums than ever
— leaving their rootsy bluegrass as an accent that colors in the
edges.

While that might sound as if the Avetts are working against their
strengths, the real revelation of I and Love and You is that the
band is versatile and talented enough to pull it off with the same
passion and straightforward tenderness that made Emotionalism
one of 2007’s best albums. Their songwriting blossoms from its core
honesty into songs about friendship, family, love, challenges, doubt,
and striving for the right things in life. The opening title song is a
gradually swelling cello and piano ballad that highlights both the ache
and the buzzing excitement of starting over. “Laundry Room,” the
album’s next most memorable song, layers piano and strings on a bed of
guitar and banjo picking, and the Avetts’ superb harmony vocals,
buoyant enough to dig hope out of heartbreak: Tonight I’ll burn the
lyrics, ’cause every chorus was your name
.

In expanding their sound, the Avetts have crafted an album of
abundant thrills, and while not quite a masterpiece, I and Love and
You
continues the band’s long ascendancy. (American Recordings)

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