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The Avett Brothers dropped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday night to share the title track from their upcoming ninth album, True Sadness.
The toe-tapping rocker has a wistful, twangy tone, focusing on the troubling places life can take us and the lurking darkness beneath the masks we wear.
"When I was a child, I depended on a bottle/ Full-grown I've been known to lean on a bottle/
But you're the real deal in a world of imposters/ And I've seen the program make men out of monsters,"
Seth Avett sings in one of several tales of woe that chronicle friends who bring you back from the abyss,
Adam and Eve's original sin and a young woman who yearns for the world to see the heart beneath her beautiful exterior.
Avett Brothers Announce New Album 'True Sadness' In Letter to Fans
"But I still wake up shaken by dreams/ And I hate to say it, but the way it seems/
Is that no one is fine/ Take the time to peel a few layers and you will find/ True sadness," Avett counsels on the swaying chorus.
Listen to the Avett Brothers' Foot-Stomping New Single, 'Ain't No Man'
The North Carolina group also played "Ain't No Man," the first single from the album, due June 24.
In a letter to fans, Avett described the varied moods on the new tracks, saying, "Wherein a myriad of contrasting fabrics make perfect sense on the same plane,
this album draws upon countless resources from its writers and performers...
There are moments of undeniable celebration and camaraderie, others of quiet and lonely exhalation."