Supergroups are all the rage. The success of Boygenius, the hyper-successful collaboration of indie-folk heavyweights Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, has inspired a slew of similar projects, including another contender for this column with an excellent recent release, Snocaps. But something I most definitely did not have on my bingo card at the start of 2025 was a new collaboration between North Carolinian Americana duo Avett Brothers, and alternative rock icon / Faith No More frontman Mike Patton.
Patton, evidently a fan of Scott and Seth Avett’s work, reached out to the duo and a period of remote songwriting collaboration followed, from which the tracks comprising AVTT/PTTN were formed.
The resulting work leans more heavily towards The Avett Brothers previous work: however the contributions of Patton cannot be underestimated. The nine tracks included on the record are wholly without the superficiality which has at times self-sabotaged the brother’s ability to connect deeply with the listener (I present as evidence Kick Drum Heart from their otherwise excellent 2009 L.P., I And Love And You: “We’re holding hands in the rain, s-sayin’ words like ‘I love you’”).
Somewhat surprisingly, it all hangs together extremely well, feeling essential and weighty rather than (as with many other similar collaborations) superfluous and fleeting.
The album opens with a trademark picked guitar and a flourish of tambourine, before Patton, backed by the brothers in a line which feels like a deeply honest reflection of the mental health issues which saw him cancel Faith No More’s 2021 tour, intones “I’ve been taking time to get well all alone, but parts of me aren’t healing”.
And while similar themes pervade the record, it’s not all doom and gloom. In the steady ballad Too Awesome, a refrain of “You are beloved, you are a gift. The mountains bow before you, the wind it calls your name” provides the balance essential to prevent the album from descending into self-pity. It’s a fine line, but AVTT/PTTN walk it with aplomb. Let’s hope this is just the start.
4.5/5 stars
