The Avett Brothers have been on quite a musical journey over the past decade, going from a trio playing acoustic guitar, banjo and stand-up bass to what is now a seven-member lineup that has built considerably on the group’s scrappy, stripped back acoustic beginnings.
Altering genres
The big shift came with the 2009 album, “I and Love and You.” Produced by Rick Rubin, the Avett Brothers have retained their acoustic foundation, but broadened their instrumental and stylistic reach so they can’t be classified as folk or acoustic.
The next two albums, 2012’s “The Carpenter” and 2014’s “Magpie and the Dandelion,” continued down that path. Seth Avett, who started the group with his older brother, Scott, in 2000, explains, “True Sadness,” represents another leap forward for the group.
“This one’s a major one in terms of me reframing what I think the (band) sounds like,” Avett said of “True Sadness”. “We are opening ourselves up further in the aesthetics, to have no boundaries while staying heavily rooted in some version of story telling.”
“True Sadness,” released June 24, is the most sonically adventurous, instrumentally diverse— and the most stylistically varied— album yet from the group. Recorded with the seven-member touring band (bassist/fiddle player Bob Crawford, drummer Mike Marsh, keyboardist Paul Defiglia, cellist Joe Kwon and fiddle player Tania Elizabeth), the songs touch on a myriad of styles, from stomping pop to jangly folk-rock with hints of epic westerns
Even with that variety, the release includes many songs with the acoustic folk-rock foundation that defined the group’s early days.
Influential input
The two brothers remained the songwriters on “True Sadness,” but Avett said the other band members brought their influences and ideas to the table. For the most part, he said, the songs developed organically as the other musicians got involved.
“We have a very good, very natural sort of rhythm where Scott and I are able to present our visions for a song,” Avett said. “You just have faith in the players and you don’t have to micro-manage everything… we all have enough experience where we can come to a great agreement, normally without saying anything at all.”
That musical chemistry has been developed through four-plus years of touring. And while shows of recent vintage demonstrate that the seven-member lineup is plenty potent live, Avett feels the group has plenty of room to grow.
“We have not really fully embraced what is possible here with this band. I mean, seven people, with several multi-instrumentalists, there’s a lot that can be done,” he said.
“Sometimes it starts feeling like we really could be presenting something with a lot more breadth than we have so far,” Avett said. “Now, we’re committed to our original material. But man, it’s fun to dig into something that is really out of our comfort zone, and realizing we can actually present it because of this band.”
8pm | Saturday, July 9 | $40+
Toledo Zoo Amphitheater | 2 Hippo Way
419-385-4040 | toledozoo.org
