My anticipation for the new Avett Brothers album, coming out early in 2012, can be described as nail-biting. Maybe that’s because once I started listening to “I And Love And You,” I couldn’t stop. So I started listening to Emotionalism. Couldn’t stop there either. No matter how far back I traveled into the Brothers’ punk-tinged bluegrass catalogue, I just couldn’t get enough.
So I’m greeting this new single of theirs pretty joyfully. And that’s not just because I’m a little obsessed –- like most of their work, it’s honest, raw, and musically invigorating. And there’s something different, too, about “The Once and Future Carpenter”… there’s no banjo. Instead, brothers Scott and Seth both take to acoustic guitars, playing them in tandem with their trademark energy and verve.
Lyrically, the track plays like a classic road ballad; “Forever I will move like the world that turns beneath me/and when I lose my direction I look up to the sky,” the Brothers sing, concluding with the hopeful yet heartbreaking line, “If I live the life I’m given, I won’t be scared to die.”
I may be impatient, but if this track is an indicator, the upcoming Avett Brothers album will be worth the wait.