True Sadness ... both treads familiar ground and maps out new terrain.
Some have labeled True Sadness as the Avett Brothers’ worst album ever, while others have labeled it as their very best. While there is room for such polarization in such a varied overall career as the brothers have perpetuated thus far, what matters is that they are still finding ways to reinvent themselves while remaining true to the values that have made their music theirs since 2002’s Country Was.
With True Sadness, The Avett Brothers open up to their audience, sharing their dark depths with tenacity and bravado, all while inspiring to see struggles as strength.
True Sadness is very much a musical olio (it's easy to pick up on countless other influences, as well), but as a whole, the album envelops the listener, like the embrace of a comfortable blanket.
On True Sadness ... the hip-hop-schooled song swami finally, gently, ushers the Avetts into the pop arena. Some may be startled. But given their restless ambition and Rubin's pedigree, the only surprise is that this move comes on what, by some measures, is their most heart-baring LP, staring down loss and fingering scars amid the good-time jams.
The Avett Brothers deserve credit for refusing to simply remake their past music. But creative restlessness and bold experimentation in process are only as valuable as the end result, and in attempting to serve too many ambitions all at once, True Sadness falls short.
As hit and miss as the out-of-character experiments on True Sadness can be, they still serve to highlight how drab and formulaic most of the album's contrapuntal Americana material is.
The band’s work with Rubin has yielded records scrubbed of the rawness and grit that made the band so compelling in its early years. It’s fitting, then, that The Avett Brothers’ most abysmal and disappointing record yet bears the title of True Sadness.
The opening track “Ain’t No Man” tops the album by far, but isn’t the only notable song on the record. The switching up of styles in a couple songs isn’t what your average listener would probably like to hear from the Avett Brothers, but I don’t mind it. Notable tracks: ‘Ain’t No Man,’ ‘Mama I Don’t Believe,’ ‘Smithsonian,’ ‘True Sadness,’ and ‘Victims of Life.’
Wow, this must be rock bottom or--perhaps more appropriately--"True Sadness". This album is polished clean of the gritty folk The Avett Brothers excel at, replaced with a 2-D cardboard cutout of a wannabe folk record. I could not even get through the whole LP.
Notable Songs: Nothing of note.
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