the everybodyfields: Nothing Is Okay

Avett Brothers’ new labelmates make it hurt so good

Having proclaimed God a moonshiner and channeled the sorrows of everyone from flooded-out farmers to Elvis on their first two LPs, this Johnson City, Tenn., duo has finally grazed upon some of its own old bones, rummaging through the dark closet of the South. Sam Quinn and Jill Andrews trade gorgeous, aching vocals that sear through a tapestry of plaintive fiddle and pedal steel, sucker-punching with lines like “you took the candy out of my mouth / and filled it up with really old Saltines” (on the sprawling post-love song “Everything Is Okay”) and “time will forget your name / and float away in a purple haze / the best you can hope for is to go in your sleep” (on the heady first track “Aeroplane”). Sometimes love don’t feel like it should, but who’s to say what’s right or wrong with sadness this divine?