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The Avett Brothers
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Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions
Ramseur Records
Release: 2/07/2006
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Rated:
Review by:
David Strickler
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"Be loud, let your colors show...try to keep the madness
low...if they hear, and it's wrong, and they come with
torches on...yeah come on...be loud, let your colors
show...."
With these lines from "Colorshow," North Carolina's Avett
Brothers not only officially thumb their collective noses at
the bluegrass paradigm, but most conventional musical
stylings as well. The band long ago threw out any semblance
of true song structure, and do you know what they say about
that? So what! It's this move that's attracted the Concord trio
a rather fanatical following; so it seems to be reaping
dividends.
"Colorshow," like the other sixteen songs from their new
album Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville
Sessions, is the result of eleven days (often working
twelve hours a day), holed up in a house by a lake in the
mountains of western North Carolina. Thirty-one songs were
written and/or recorded for the sessions and were eventually
pared down to a little more than half that. And whether or
not it might've been physically, mentally and emotionally
draining, cabin fever can inspire, create and bring forth
timeless quality, be it music or rocket science.
Although a couple of cuts on Four Thieves Gone
could've been culled, for the most part, the album brims with
mostly stellar songs harkening back to artists and genres
both past and present...nineties Neil Young ("The Fall"),
fifties Richie Valens ("Pretend Love"), seventies Neil
Diamond ("Matrimony"), eighties Violent Femmes ("Talk On
Indolence"), 1850's Stephen Foster ("Distraction #74") and
Charlie Daniels - before the self-righteousness set in
["Denouncing November Blue (Uneasy Writer)"].
These guys not only play outside the box, they sometimes
sit on top of it, burn it or kick holes in it. |
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