Pop music is certainly no stranger to talented brothers. Right off the bat, the names The Everly Brothers and The Statler Brothers come to mind. Both were bands that used the kind of arrangements and harmonies found in traditional country and bluegrass music to craft a kind of earnest pop music that moved fans both young and old. After the release of their ninth full length studio album, Emotionalism, the Avett Brothers should be considered as part of that group of great pop music brothers.

The order of the day here, and in the majority of what I write elsewhere, is snark. The sharp tongue and the biting wit are a gift, especially when it comes to critique. But I cannot in good faith be snarky about this record. Emotionalism is quite simply one of the best records I have ever heard. It is at once strong and weak, angry and triumphant, desperate and hopeful. In a word, this record is love.

And that’s the point really. The newest record by Scott and Seth Avett, and upright bassist Bob Crawford, is maybe the most accurate document of the roller coaster ride that is passion and love and need since Leonard Cohen’s debut Songs of Leonard Cohen. And like that record by NYC’s favorite bard, Emotionalism will become, for many fans, the thing they turn to in the dark, when things have gone sour, and they need proof that they’re not the only person to have to go through what they’re going through. The newest record by the Avett Brothers isn’t just pop music, it’s pop music that can save lives.

There are songs like Shame, where the banjo haunts the melody from a place just on the periphery of sound, and the lyrics craft the picture of a man wrenched from the inside out by a decision he regrets, and the revelations he’s forced to make as a result of that decision.

Or The Weight of Lies, in which the songwriter lets us into the aftermath of those bad decisions, and explains that you can’t run from that aftermath. Eventually, despite how far you get away from the things that frighten or anger you, those things will track you down. It’s a lesson of life we all have to learn, and the song lets you know that you’re not alone in the learning.

But the real strength of this record, the song that will stand the test of time, like Sisters of Mercy from Songs of Leonard Cohen, is the Ballad of Love and Hate. An account of the relationship between Love and Hate, the song shows us a picture of base need, using the two emotions we’re most familiar with, and the two emotions that exist on two sides of a very thin line, to do so. By naming the characters Love and Hate, the Avetts are telling a tale of a relationship at its most reckless and it’s most hopeful. Love and Hate can’t exist without each other, and anyone who has ever been in a love so deep they could taste it on their lips and feel it in their bones knows exactly what this song is about, and will always be moved by it, regardless of how many times they hear it.

Emotionalism uses the same kind of stark soundscapes, simple chord arrangements, and earnest lyricism that have become the trademarks of the Avett Brothers recordings and live shows. The album dips and peaks, pulling at every emotion and memory in these expansive domes of ours, to create an accurate and moving picture of what it means to be human, and what it means to need. Seth Avett’s guitar, Scott Avett’s banjo, and Bob Crawford’s upright bass are no doubt strung with heartstrings, and each time they play them, they touch something inside us all.

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