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The Avett Brothers
Mignonette
Ramseur Records
About that catchy title: The Mignonette (pronounced Men-yon-ette) was an English yacht that capsized off the coast of Africa back in 1884. After 19 days, the four surviving members drew straws and summarily killed and ate the weakest member of the crew. Rescued five days later, Captain Tom Dudley admitted to the killing, and was soon convicted in an attempt by the British government to stop what they saw as a horribly barbaric seafaring custom. The only evidence? Dudley's honorable (in his eyes, at least) confession.
While not a concept album proper, Mignonette was arranged around a central theme offered by the tale: relying on The Truth, and trusting that internal North Star to always lead one down the correct path, despite the consequences that may follow.
Mignonette begins with "Swept Away," the kind of up-front love song the Avetts (Seth Avett, guitar and vocals; Scott Avett, banjo and vocals; Bob Crawford, standup bass) have become justifiably known for. By song two -- "Nothing Short of Thankful" -- the boys are ruminating on their blessings (another strong suit, it seems) while deconstructing their music into a stop-and-start jamboree of time changes. "Hard Worker," another standout, is one of many songs on the disc that deal with the concept of hard work and the struggle of the working man. And of course, there's plenty of the "pretty girl" songs -- "Pretty Girl at the Airport," "Pretty Girl from Cedar Lane," "Letter to a Pretty Girl" -- that have appeared on every Avett album since the band's debut (frankly, there's plenty of songs period -- Mignonette could have quite easily been two albums).
"Complainte D'Un Matelot Mourant (Lament for a Dying Seafarer)" a mournful instrumental meant to relate the story of the ship's sinking, might be the truest distillation of the Mignonette vision. At once mournful, pretty, and shrieking with ghastly import, it's also a look at a band in their prime not willing to lay down anchor in the same familiar ports of call just for the sake of keeping afloat. (www.theavettbrothers.com)
Grade: A---Timothy C. Davis
- Creative Loafing
Industry reaction
”O Brother! The Avett Brothers, out of Concord, N.C., make harmony-drenched country music in the spirit of the Louvin Brothers and deliver it with the energy of the Stinson Brothers. But it's their exceptionally strong writing that's most likely to separate the Avetts from much of the alt-country pack.”
The Independent Weekly
"The live-wire, old-time-country-inspired music of the Avett Brothers is bursting with the same exhilarating spirit of discovery as Uncle Tupelo's MARCH 16-20, 1992 and the Gourds' DEM'S GOOD BEEBLE."
Rick Cornell, No Depression Magazine
”If one were to take the turbo-acoustic energy of the Violent Femmes and marry it to Uncle Tupelo's stripped-down "March 16-20, 1992" album, the end result would sound something like the old-time country porch n' roll of Concord, N.C.'s Avett Brothers.”
Kevin Oliver, Country Standard Time
”If Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers came up in today's musical environment, they'd probably sound a lot like the Avetts -- a wild ride down a mountain road with only one hand on the wheel, the other wrapped around a likker jar.”
Woody Mitchell, The Charlotte Observer
”The Avett Brothers' music is infused with everything that makes music so great. It's natural and real, simultaenously soothing yet rocking enough to get you all fired up. These guys realize the power of music and they take it seriously, feeling every single word that comes from their mouths and every single note that strums out of their fingers.”
Silas House, Music Journalist
"Love Like The Movies" fits us like a glove...”
Stan Edwards, Program Director, Country Bear Radio
“Scott and Seth Avett's harmonies on their second full-player proper, A Carolina Jubilee, work like an old muscle car that takes forever to crank but -- once the pistons start firing -- eats up the highway with gusto. Like the brothers' harmonies, it's live-wire stuff. Who knew acoustic music could sound so electrifying?” It's music that's not so much concerned with the dichotomy between Saturday night and Sunday morning as it is with those days where everything changes suddenly -- like a breakup or meeting someone who sweeps you off your feet -- and the rest of your life. True, stripped-down front porch country with a Piedmont blues twist, with enough sharp edges to make Steve Albini stand up and applaud."
Tim Davis, The Creative Loafing
“…their live act is like a bluegrass version of the early Who.”
Mark Price, The Charlotte Observer
“The Avett Brothers have a unique hillbilly sound that will surely lead them to the Opry stage before long.”
Billy Block, Western Beat
- Various
Discography
A Carolina Jubilee - Ramseur Records 2003 (lp)
Swept Away - Ramseur Records 2004 (single)
Mignonette - Ramseur Records 2004 (lp)
Mignonette was the 8th most added record on the CMJ Chart for the first week in July. It is currently (July 15th) #188. Next week it will be added to the Americana Chart.
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
The Avett Brothers of Concord, North Carolina are Scott Avett, age 26, and Seth Avett, 22, and Bob Crawford, 32. The trio plays old-time, foot stompin', front and back porch mountain music with shades of country and a rock-n-roll attitude. The band features Scott on banjo, lead vocals and stomp drum, Seth on guitar, lead vocals, stomp cymbal and piano, and Bob on stand-up bass and backing vocals. This vocally driven outfit delivers harmonic punch with true conviction in the same manner as the Louvin Brothers or the Everly Brothers.
The Avett Brothers have been called a traveling celebration. As much as this is a great compliment, it is also an apt visual of their live performances. In a broad sense, they look exactly like that, a celebration. There are composed of only three, but they always play 5 or 6 instruments simultaneously, existing on the stage in a kind of rhythmic whirlwind. There is a ragged wildness about their shows that musically charges the foundations of more lively, erratic, and boot-stomping music. The second dimension of the celebration is the aspect of celebrating life itself, with the intention of encompassing its less than lively aspects; the parts like sadness, and heartache, weakness, and regret. These things find their way into the live shows as authentically as the feverishly strummed, up-tempo anthems; both have the ability to plow through a crowd in three minutes and stick to their ribs long after they've shuffled out of the venue.
The raw intensity will remain a constant trademark as Bob Crawford says, "What can be said, without reserve, is that we put everything we have into our shows, and this is what we will continue to do."
Their energy, emotion and artistry are captured on their seminal album effort, Mignonette, the newest recording to be released July 13th on Ramseur Records by Sony Red. Mignonette, penned collectively by the band, is just under 74 minutes long. An album of this scale is ambitious in any forum. For most musical efforts this long, the immense sacrifice is quality for quantity. There is, however, no sacrifice that decreases the artistic merit of this Mignonette. While not a concept album in the traditional sense, the inspiration and guide was the album's namesake, the story of the Mignonette. Author Neil Hansen paraphrased the tale for the Avetts' album. In essence, in 1884, an English Yacht, the Mignonette, sank in a storm off the Coast of Africa. After 19 days on a small dingy, the four survivors ate the weakest crewmember as hundreds of shipwrecked seamen had done before them. Five days later the remaining men were rescued and one insisted on telling the truth oh what they had done. Refusing to lie regardless of the personal consequences, the man freely confessed. The English Government sentenced the crew to death on a sole piece of evidence: that man's confession. The new album hopes to offers a musical statement in honesty. The Avett Brothers elaborate, "It's not to say that all the songs are literally about truth, but we hope that a notion of truth will be felt by whoever listens to it. To us, it seems that this is a feeling that comes across in all the best music, in all the music that stays in a person's heart. It is this honesty that gives someone an actual love, a bond with a song, or with a record. Mignonette is an album that carries an overall theme of truth. In some parts, there are specific passages relating directly to it."
Mignonette is irreverent mixture of bluegrass, pop melodies, folk, rock n' roll, and honky tonk, but it is the thread of honesty that ties this aggressive acoustic sound and defines the band that is grappling with its noble pursuit. For example, the closing track on the album, "Salvation Song", contains a chorus, which speaks to an extremely universal audience. The lyric takes on the immense task of declaring a purpose, attempting to give solid answers as to why we live at all: "We came for salvation. We came for family. We came for all that's good. That's how we'll walk away. We came to break the bad. We came to cheer the sad. We came to leave behind the world a better way." Seth Avett ruminates, "These lines are approaching the most honest, stripped - down manner in which we could describe our desire, the things that matter to us, not only as a band, but as living, breathing people. There are other, even more direct lines in the theme of honesty on the album."
On the 16th track, entitled "A Gift for Melody Anne", they sing with haunting sibling harmonies: "I just want my life to be true, and I just want my heart to be true, and I just want my words to be true, and just want my song to be true." It could be said, that at times, subtlety is not the band's strength. In its place is a hopeful clarity, and solidity largely unknown in the world of popular music. "We do not pretend to have it all figured out, though we do hope to at least know what and why we are singing. As songwrit
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