Mignonette

iTunes Review

The album title of the Avett Brothers’ fourth studio album was taken from the name of an English yacht that sank beneath the Cape of Good Hope, rendering its four surviving passengers stranded on a lifeboat for 19 days before a crazed hunger set in and they killed and devoured the cabin boy. Mignonette, then is (mostly) a concept album musing on this historical tragedy, with songs that echo timeless Americana tones culling from equal parts bluegrass, folk, country and traditional Appalachian mountain music. The majority of lyrics reflect the adventure, survival, sadness, desperation, and raw honesty of the story’s protagonists, starting with “Swept Away,” a beautiful ballad with high-lonesome harmonies and lyrics that sing of a reverie involving two of the ship’s passengers engaged in a dance-floor romance. “Nothing Short of Thankful” shifts gears to approximate a stripped-down, upbeat Western swing vibe playing under the pointless optimism of the story’s characters. The cannibalistic double entendres make “Salvation Song” as creepy as it is catchy: “If you take my heart/ Don’t leave the smallest part/ I’ve no need to live if you’re to come up gone/ And as my life turns to a song.”