The Avett Brothers- The Second Gleam
By Matthew Ralph

The announcement earlier this summer of the Avett Brothers’ plans to release their next full-length album on American Recordings/Columbia Records has helped to create added buzz for this eight-song EP. New attention aside, the Avett Brothers are hardly new kids on the block.

Their 11th release since a self-titled debut in 2000, The Second Gleam takes a mellower folk approach than 2007’s Emotionalism. If like me you still can’t get the spunky single “Die, Die, Die” out of your head, The Second Gleam might catch you a bit off-guard. In a good way.

Known as much for bringing the party to their live shows as they are for their work in the studio, we see the Avetts here showing their strengths as catchy and creative songwriters of stripped down tunes. While alternating takes of “The Greatest Sum” – one electric and the other acoustic on the digital download version of the record – come off as redundant and nearly unnecessary, the song is strong enough to demand a second listen. Still, when you hit repeat as I’ve been prone to do after the record cuts off so seemingly short the song does start to wear a bit thin. Songs like “Bella Donna” and “Black, Blue” make it worth repeated visits, latching onto the ears with their subtle blend of tender vocals and soothingly sparse instrumentals. “Murder in the City” and “Tear Down the House,” meanwhile, intrigue with their lyrical content, providing a glimpse into the personal and family history as the songs move at a slow-moving train’s pace.

If like me you are still getting to know the Avetts, this is a good place to start diving into the band’s back catalog before their big debut under the national spotlight. While I can’t speak with much authority to the other 10 releases (The First Gleam EP among them), their latest offering is worthy, to my ears, of regular rotation.

So, it’s been awhile. But, after a break for relocating, Culture Lobster is back, and perhaps will be more active. Or, perhaps not. But while we’re here, let’s discuss some things.

With regards to things that nobody else really cares about anymore . . . In theaters:

Don’t get me wrong – I love me some Judd Apatow. I particularly love that Seth Rogen is a huge star who is able to go on late night American television and talk about how much he loves weed, and everybody is cool with it. But something about Pineapple Express struck me in a weird way, and I can’t really put my finger on what it is. 

This is not to say that I thought Pineapple Express was bad. I thought that Seth Rogen and James Franco were both very enjoyable to watch – there’s something to be said for someone who can play a brooding comic book character and a lovable stoner equally well.

But theoretically, Pineapple Express should have been GREAT. The trailer painted it as almost a dark comedy: Stoner jokes backed by legitimate Tarantino-esque violence. The red band trailer had a brutal shot of a man being killed point blank, fancy camera angles of Seth Rogen jumping into a fight – it even had the classic Tarantino “from the trunk of the car” shot. Stoner comedy + badass action = everything you could want in a movie.

Instead the movie was heavier on the stoner comedy, and the action sequences were nothing more than the trailer provided. And this time we didn’t even get to hear “Paper Planes.”  Instead of dark action we got very odd humor. Most of what existed in Pineapple Express to balance out the scenes of flailing through the woods all high and shit was more likely to illicit a reaction of “Wait, what?” as opposed to cleverly crafted jokes. Which is not necessarily good or bad – it’s better than simply being unfunny. But arbitrary moments such as a relationship talk between Rogen’s character and his high school girlfriend or instances of flirtation between a drug dealer and a crooked cop are just weird enough to work – if there were more of them. Pineapple Express may be better than your average comedy, but it’s more patchy and cohesive, and it’s worse than your average Apatow produced comedy.

The problem of course being that Apatow is no longer writing these movies. Superbad was worse than Knocked Up and Pineapple Express is even worse than Superbad. It seems that Rogen’s screen presence has a lot more to offer than his writing. But who knows? Perhaps he’ll get there.

. . . In Netflix:

So the first DVD I received in my return to Netflix was Jonestown, and oh man, aren’t cults crazy? Jim Jones was quite the religious leader. He somehow managed to take a bunch of good ideas: integration, the contradictions in the Bible, the downfalls of communism, helping the poor – and use them to control people until People’s Temple clusterfucked its way into one of the most tragic American events ever.

The notorious death tape – the forty five minute recording that covers the time immediately before the suicide and part way through it – is available to anyone who cares enough to Google it (I won’t judge you, you demented freak). But hearing it as it’s edited in with photos, videos and accounts of people who were there and lost their families was a pretty intense experience. Definitely worth renting even if only to learn more about one of the most fucked up things that has happened to our country.

. . . In music:

-Ting Tings’s We Started Nothing – Have people figured out yet that all of the awesome songs that are played in commercials actually come from sweet indie albums? Most people know the song “Shut Up and Let Me Go” without realizing it. Anyway – iPod commercials aside, the Ting Tings are like if the crazy but untamed dance beats from CSS merged with the cute but boring tunes from the Pipettes. The result is a good time.

-The Avett Brothers’ The Second Gleam - Oh boy. The final release on hometown label Ramseur Records continues with the Avetts as they go with a more produced, less stripped down sound. Surely their next full length album with Rick Rubin will carry them even further in this direction. But for now we just have The Second Gleam: a few tracks with just the two brothers, following up The Gleam. Both records have a softer, gentler sound. Both back more sentiment than the typical, restless Avett track. Aww. These songs serve to show off the brothers’ songwriting skills, and it’s nice that they have their own place. But hopefully it doesn’t mark a full committment to production and polish – the messiness is part of what makes this band great. And on a related note…

-Timothy Seth Avett as Darling’s The Mourning, The Silver, The Bell – I think this is from back in 2005. Oh, well. Seth Avett goes solo, and the result is pretty similar to some Avett Brothers song, except they’re all really sad. So in this way, Darling fits perfectly alongside The Second Gleam. In fact, one of the songs from a different Darling album showed up on The Second Gleam. Keep both of these guys in mind if you’re planning on getting left by a significant other.

-Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip’s Angles – This is slightly less outdated. The U.S. release of Angles happened at the beginning of September, but so far as I can tell, the U.S. still hasn’t quite caught on yet. The other half of Culture Lobster tends to be up on discovering weird yet sincere bits of music right before everyone else realizes how fucking charming they are (see: The Moldy Peaches). Anyway. Dan Le Sac helps Scroobius Pip churn out catchy and captivating U.K. raps.

. . . And finally

Listen very carefully. If you haven’t yet discovered the song “Never Get Ahead” by Bobby Conn, follow these instructions:

1) Go to Flying Pizza Kitty.
2) Take note that this is mildly amusing.
3) Find the August 29th post, which should by the Flying Pizza Kitty game 2.
4) Find Bobby Conn. Click on the boombox.
5) Repeat. Forever.
6) If you do get bored with this fan-fucking-tastic song, look up the YouTube video where Bobby Conn is dancing amidst children and lip-synching to a version of the song that edits out all of the references to fellatio.

Billboard – One of the greatest attributes of the Avett Brothers is their ability to whip up frothy, harmonic numbers out of just a few guitars and one DNA strand, but don’t come to “The Second Gleam” looking for too terribly much of that. This sequel to the 2006 EP “Gleam” is focused on characters and storytelling. It opens by addressing abandoning ties to your childhood and murder. (In “Murder in the City,” there’s some concern about which brother a father likes better, and there’s no way to not get all Freudian thinking about that.)The most hopeful thing “Second Gleam” can muster is “I’m a better man for having gone through it,” from the mournful opener “Tear Down This House” (as in, “that I grew up in”). But that said, this is a dark but potent hors d’oeuvre.

• Avett Brothers – Bella Donna.mp3