The third volume in the
Avett Brothers
' abbreviated and stripped-down Gleam series, the aptly named
Third Gleam
EP dispenses with the architectural finery of big studio efforts like
I and Love and You
and
True Sadness
and pares the group down to just
Scott
Seth
, with the occasional double bass rumble from longtime cohort
Bob Crawford
. Commencing with the contemplative, lightly fingerpicked "Victory," the eight-song set is sparse and inward-looking, with narrative themes and melodies that feel as familiar as an old baseball glove. The banjo-and-guitar-led "I Should've Spent the Day with My Family" takes a "Cat's in the Cradle" approach to gun violence -- a subject that the Avetts also explored on 2019's "Bang Bang" -- with a man framing his perceived failures as a father against updates of a local school shooting. Elsewhere, the gospel-tinged "From Prison to Heaven" weighs the pros and cons of a successful jailbreak and repentance before the almighty, while the lovely "Step Into the Night," which also seeks hope amidst the darkness, does so without succumbing to the old-timey artifice of its predecessor. Throughout their careers, the
have excelled at capturing the small moments between bit players strutting and fretting their hours upon the stage of life, and
is no exception. Stripped of any studio sheen, the songs hearken back to the siblings' early work when they were still sculpting their heartfelt hipster hobo aesthetic. ~ James Christopher Monger