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AVETT BROTHERS
The Second Gleam
(Ramseur)

(NO DEPRESSION.NET) -- The final outing from the brothers Avett on their longtime indie-label home Ramseur Records is a sweet and sentimental farewell, a six-song EP featuring just siblings Seth and Scott (sans stalwart bassist Bob Crawford and recent cello recruit Joe Kwan). It's anyone's guess what their upcoming collaboration with Rick Rubin and American/Columbia will bring -- but here, there are no expectations, only a handful of simple statements about who they are, and where they've been.

The immediate standout is "Murder In The City", a staple of their live sets for the past year or so. Like their early mission-statement anthem "Salvation Song", it reaches to the very core from which everything else springs for the Avetts. The title is misleading: Though it's taken from the first line of the song, what follows the hypothetical scenario -- "If I get murdered in the city" -- is a series of observations about the things that truly matter in life. For the Avetts, it's family first and foremost; after heartfelt references to their father and mother and sister, they conclude by declaring, "Always remember there was nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name."

Scott sings lead on "Murder In The City"; Seth is out front on the disc's other highlight, the opening "Tear Down The House". It's similar in tone; both songs find the brothers looking back on the bedrock roots of their past as they embark on a grand but unknown future. Seth sings of "the house that I grew up in" and "the woods that I ran through" and "the old car that I loved the best," understanding and accepting that these lifelong landmarks must pass, even as they still burn bright in his memory. Essentially the song is about accepting the mantle of maturity, as one of the middle verses underscores: "Ever since I learned how to curse/I've been using those sorry old words/But I'm talkin' to these children and I'm keepin' it clean/I don't need those words to say what I mean."

After that magnificent one-two start, Seth and Scott trade turns on "Bella Donna" and "The Greatest Sum", respectively. Those songs are less direct, more impressionistic but, in their own way, no less emotional or beautiful, buoyed by the brothers' instilled instinct for graceful melodicism. (Download-versions of the EP include an alternate electric take on "The Greatest Sum", plus a bonus cut titled "Black, Blue".) The final two songs, Scott's "St. Joseph's" and Seth's "Souls Like The Wheels", are a slight step down -- they come across more as intriguing sketches that didn't quite fly in the end -- but they nevertheless are perfectly of a piece with the rest of the disc.

Like its 2006 predecessor (the first Gleam EP), this collection, while seemingly a stopgap between major releases, is in fact a fascinatingly revealing up-close glimpse into the heart of the Avett Brothers' artistic axis. In its own way, it's as good as anything they've ever done.

-- PETER BLACKSTOCK
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Peter Blackstock.