Screengrab theavettbrothers "The Third Gleam: Announcement Video"
The Avett Brothers have announced the release of their 10th studio album, The Third Gleam, out August 28th. The record will see brothers Seth and Scott Avett along with bass player Bob Crawford return to their roots as an acoustic trio.
The Third Gleam comes 12 years after The Second Gleam and 14 years after The Gleam, a pair of early EPs that captured the roots of The Avett Brothers. Now, following years of building up the band with more and more members, The Avett Brothers will return to those roots once again.
The band’s most recent album, Closer Than Together, was released in October 2019 to widespread critical acclaim. The band’s last five albums were produced by Rick Rubin, and it’s unclear if the band will invite him back to produce the record that’s meaning is to signify the band returning to their pre-stardom roots. The band did, however, post an announcement video to YouTube, as has become customary, to shed some light on the creation of the latest album.
In the video, Seth and Scott Avett sit beside one another, cloaked in a black and white filter, on their front porch. Seth reads from a pre-written statement while Scott remains silent for the entire 3:14 video, staring directly the camera. Seth explains that The Third Gleam was recorded and finished before the outbreak of coronavirus and, consequently, before the recent social upheaval in response to racial inequality in the United States.
Watch the announcement video and read a full transcript below along with the track list for The Third Gleam.
The Avett Brothers — The Third Gleam: Announcement Video
The Third Gleam was finished before a virus and its carnage swept through humankind in the spring of 2020,” share Scott and Seth. “It was finished before the most recent injustices against black lives inspired outrage and a much-needed call for social reform and revolution. Through the fever pitch of fear over the pandemic, outcry in the wake of widely observable bigotry, and mourning over the death caused by both, we are united in conflict…put to task in the arenas of our fortitude, our morality, indeed the strength of our own souls, individually and collectively. It is a time of heightened experience; heightened response; heightened resolve. If you are reading or hearing this statement now, you are a part of it.
And yet, neither of these massive fundamental concerns are entirely new to us. Sickness…in body and in mind are old news for our species, and in truth have found us susceptible throughout our complex history. And so our plagues, biological, behavioral and systemic, are intrinsically a part of us. We navigate them poorly at times and heroically at others.
To the point of this writing, as it pertains to the announcement of a record release, it barely warrants mentioning that an 8-song collection is a whisper of an offering in a time of blaring considerations. As I mentioned before, Scott and I finished this album just before these two fundamental concerns overtook nearly the entire planet. Consequently, as the timeline goes, the songs were not informed specifically by the urgent and pivotal concepts which are now center stage. However, as these factors have been and will remain a part of us as a whole, independent of a specific moment in history, the songs of this particular piece do connect somehow to this particular time. Our personal perspectives and experiences are inherently the common thread, which is an element we have found to be imperative in our process of making art. Even so, there are themes which have made their way into this chapter of songs that are undeniably universal, and anchored in our current world…
Isolation, resilience, frustration, confusion, contemplation and hope are here, both in regards to our own lives and as a consideration of the human experience in general. There is humor and love, both for life itself and as it binds a pairing of people. We touch on historical prejudice, faith, economic disparity, gun violence, incarceration, redemption, and as is increasingly standard with our records, stark mortality. This is by no means a record defined by any specific social or cultural goal, nor is it informed by a singular challenge posed to humanity. It is merely the sound of my brother and I in a room, singing about what is on our minds and in our hearts at the time…sharing it now is about what sharing art is always about: another chance that we may partake in connecting with our brothers and sisters of this world, and hopefully joining you in noticing a speck of light gleaming in what appears to be a relatively long and dark night.
