AVTT/PTTN

After squirming at the ungainly artist name and title, we can discover this unlikely collaboration between avant-metal singer Mike Patton and The Avett Brothers, those North Carolina country charmers of a more mainstream persuasion. Patton began with Mr. Bungle, found fame with Faith No More, and has consistently maintained relationships with experimentalists such as John Zorn. This team-up is something else entirely, an ambitious widescreen production, whose old-school majesty was actually shaped via digital exchanges. For sonic antecedents we can look to Lee Hazlewood, Roy Orbison and Nick Cave, as what sounds like a sprawling ensemble crafts archetypal songs of hope and despair (sometimes simultaneously). Delicate sounds abound in these sensitive arrangements, with conventional country balladry at their base, surrounded by harmonica, jaw harp, bells, banjo, piano, and a very distant vocal choir, all soaked in eternal reverb. The work of Van Dyke Parks also springs to mind, with vibrato on everything, in this hazy veil. Then, the third track, ‘Heaven’s Breath’, shocks with its heavier electric fuzz and acidic guitar solo. These short songs are certainly the utmost in concise statements.