But like all truly inspired recordings, the band's debut, The First American, forces listeners to re-examine their musical preconceptions. Because the most surprising aspect of The First American — a record chockfull of bewitching surprises — is not how avant garde or off-the-wall it is, but how organic and natural it sounds.

Its strength begins with great songs. And the eight members (all multi-instrumentalists) deliver them with passion and chops, from the sinister insistence of "Digging to China" and claustrophobic paranoia of "Appalachian," to the summery buzz of "Adelaide" and chugging rock riffage of "Engineer."

The First American is memorable also for its unique arrangements. Wind instruments and strings, rather than guitars or keyboards, not only provide accents but drive key passages in every song. Yet they never feel self-indulgent, never sacrifice melody or beat just for the shock value of a weird affect. The brick and mortar, as well as the bells and whistles, serve the song, never the other way around.

And the music serves the lyrics, written primarily by Ben Best and Joey Stephens (they also share singing duties). Both prefer striking imagery to straight narratives, and lines like "there's something coming over me and I'm pointing out my enemies"(from "Appalachian") and "I'm rancid, I'm bad, man, I'm cancer in your mouth" (from "Digging to China") accurately reflect the minor key, tangibly Gothic feel of the record, the aural equivalent of rummaging through an old house and discovering a sinister but mesmerizing past.

The final piece in the puzzle, and one that could have gutted the entire effort if mishandled, is pitch-perfect production. All those accents and instruments could have overwhelmed the songs. Instead, the production highlights their placement and distinct nature — from synthetic tape loops to organic reeds — without sacrificing the heart of the songs.

It may be tempting to put The First American in a local context, but the music, like most memorable recordings, transcends time and place. This is more than simply a great record; in its own way it can redefine how we hear music. And a record wielding that kind of power deserves our highest praise.

Rating:

- John Schacht

Darling (Seth Avett)
The Mourning, the Silver, the Bell
Ramseur Records
If there was any question that the Avett Brothers were true originals, Seth Avett's solo recording (under the moniker Darling) should put an end to his half of those questions. Stepping away from the Avett Brothers' punk-grass, brother Seth has written a slew of folk-ish confessionals, love songs and narrative tales with twangy or rock-oriented accents that cumulatively create their own appealing logic.

Alternating primarily between simple piano and acoustic guitar-driven arrangements, Darling's songs manage to avoid most folk clichés — no small feat given how many there are. By following his own songwriting logic, most of these cuts eschew the typical verse-verse-chorus nature of traditional folk songs, the best of them opting for their own structures and rules.

On "This Night Here (Something Like Hope)," for instance, Avett omits the chorus, using the title refrain as an anchor for the duration of the 3-minute song. Over a simple alternating-bass string strum on acoustic guitar, Avett celebrates the sinful lure of night and the redemptive quality of hope by first piling up a list of wrongs and then contrasting them with a perfect walk-off line, "This night here is perfect for trading sins/you can be what I've been/half-way between misery and serene nights/of something like hope."

The record's refreshing honesty is another strong draw. On "Ballad in Open D," Avett bemoans a break-up in blunt terms: "Lord there might be something that she wants from me to give her/like maybe some clothes or jewelry that she left here/well I'd give her things back gladly, but I can't/because I threw them in a river."

The record's only fault is one of exuberance, so hard to fault with any real vigor. But coming in at a whopping 65 minutes, the sheer number of songs (17) makes the record seem front-loaded. The handful of songs that stretch out into five-minute-plus territory wouldn't suffer from some editing, particularly the jarring electric guitar solo at the end of the seven-minute-plus "Mama and the Future," a three-minute coda better suited to the Avett's Oh What a Nightmare side project.

These are mostly quibbles, though, and contribute to the record's immediacy. In time, if the Avetts decide to hang up their punkgrass boots, at least their fans have Darling to wait for.