The only exception is the  title track, the production is too slick and doesn’t match the rest of the album.  Regardless, it is a good song, and it has the “tug-at-the-heart” lyrics that show up in TV dramas and romantic comedies.  And if that’s what it takes for more people to be exposed to the Avett Brothers,  I’ll take it.

I and Love and You bounces around from ballads to bluegrass to backporch drinking songs while staying ture to its central theme of love and change.  Both “And It Spread” and “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise” describe the singer’s love as light coming into his dark life.  After the light, the character wonders on “The Perfect Space” if his friends will ‘love him for the man he’s become, not the man that he was.’

It isn’t all sunshine for our narrator though, he sings of loss and missing his love on “Ill With Want” and “Tin Man.”  Our story ends with a happy ending, as the speaker realizes (”Incomplete and Insecure”) being stubborn is not as important as living with out love.  The subject matter is heavy, but the music keeps the album light.  Songs like ‘Kick Drum Heart’ and ‘Slight Figure of Speech’ are quick uptempo bluegrass jams that remind me of drinking around a bonfire singing with your old friends.  And like those good times with friends, this album will stick with you through good times and bad.