Twenty-five years or so after they picked up their banjos and decided to turn off their amps (at least for a little while), The Avett Brothers make the album you kinda always figured they would. Having graduated from the lowercase charm of their early music but likewise from the more stadium-sized sentiments of albums like 2019’s Closer Than Together, they ruminate on the simple pleasures that (of course) turn out to be not so simple after all (“Cheap Coffee”). They also indulge in folksy wisdom while taking enough shots at themselves to make that wisdom feel real (“Country Kid”). And no matter how earnest they get, they always remember to exercise the good, old-fashioned American humility that got them here in the first place (“2020 Regret”).
- 2016
- Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
- The Head and the Heart
- Langhorne Slim
- The Wood Brothers