With ‘Carpenter,’ Avett Brothers nail an American sound

“We’ve done them in two weeks,” Scott Avett said in a recent interview. “‘Emotionalism’ [released in 2007] was done in 11 days. I mean, we are quite aware of our ability to do that.”

Now the Avett Brothers also know the value of taking their time to finish an album.

“I guess I could compare it to when I was in one of my painting classes,” Avett said. “We’re always reminded you need to be stepping back and seeing the canvas just as much as when you have a brush to the canvas. And when you think about the time recording versus the time listening and contemplating, you need to spend just as much or more time listening and contemplating as you do with the mic or the instrument to the mic.”

That kind of care translated into them spending 15 months on the new album, “The Carpenter,” with work beginning in January 2011.

For most music acts, such an investment of time wouldn’t be possible. There would be demands to get the album out and get back on tour to avoid too long an absence from the public eye.

But the Avett Brothers were working with Rick Rubin, who produced the group’s acclaimed 2009 album “I and Love and You.” One of music’s most respected producers, Rubin is known to serve the artists before the bottom line, and he doesn’t like albums he produces to be released before he’s confident they are everything they should be.

Avett credits Rubin with fostering an environment where creativity could thrive without any outside business pressures.

“Something we’ve understood and we’re very thankful of is no deadlines and no budgets,” Avett said. “The way I visualize it is this: There’s a bubble, and within it is the artistic process. Outside of the bubble is entrepreneurship and marketing. And that never needs to make it inside that bubble.

“And Rick, he’s done a good job of creating the bubble,” he added.

Being able to shut out any outside distractions or pressures had become more important than ever for the Avett Brothers. With “I and Love and You” the trio was coming off an album that had cracked the top 20 on the Billboard magazine album chart and also had been a huge hit with music critics.

Up until then, the Avett Brothers had operated under a much more limited spotlight. Brothers Scott (vocals, banjo, harmonica, guitar, piano) and Seth Avett (vocals, guitars, piano) formed the group and released a self-titled EP in 2000. With bassist Bob Crawford joining in 2002, the group released more studio albums, a live release and a pair of EPs over the next five years before signing with Rubin’s American Recordings and making “I and Love and You.”

That album retained the Avetts’ acoustic foundation (particularly on songs like the folky “January Wedding” and “Ten Thousand Voices”), but broadened its instrumental and stylistic reach to the point that the group could no longer be placed in specific musical categories.

For instance, “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise” was a expansive mid-tempo track that used piano, drums, strings, organ and electric guitar. “Kick Drum Heart” was a concise and catchy pop-rocker. “Perfect Square” opens as a lovely ballad before kicking into more of a poppy piano-centric rocker. The title track, meanwhile, was a strikingly elegant, piano-based ballad.

“The Carpenter,” Scott Avett said, builds on the stylistic growth of “I and Love and You.”

“I think it’s going in the same direction,” he said. “There’s no possible way that this album can be considered a bluegrass album, not that any of our albums could have. But there’s no possible way it can be considered a folk album. In a lot of ways, I just think if Neil Young was put in the rock bin, I would imagine we would be put in the rock bin. It’s got very loud electric guitars. It’s got banjo on it. … No pun intended for the record company, but it’s probably an American album.”