One moment in time with the Avett Brothers

May 10, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Considering the epicenter of hipsterdom these days is Brooklyn, N.Y., even The Avett Brothers bassist Bob Crawford admits the lyrics to the title track of his band’s 2009 album, “I and Love and You,” are a bit on the nose.

The chorus of “Ahh Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in,” which mind you is quite beguiling in an already charming song, left plenty of folks believing the folk-sounding, North Carolina-based band was indeed from the 718 Williamsburg area.

“Brooklyn, in that respect, is a state of mind or a moment in time,” said Crawford, calling from the Tar Heel State. “Much like you think about 2001 and us driving through Cleveland or through Ohio in general, the times we had then and that being a state of mind and a formative period. That’s why I think that song comes out in a lot of ways.”

That song, along with the critically acclaimed album, marked the group’s major-label debut on American/Columbia Records with a folk-rock aesthetic that ebbs and flows between a pop sensibility and a bluegrass foundation. Vocally, the music is warm, and musically, the sound varies from piano-driven ballads to earthy riffs.

Adding intrigue is the fact uber-producer Rick Rubin was at the helm, gently guiding this quintet into mainstream shores. Even though The Avett Brothers have been around since the turn of the century, many music fans believe “I and Love and You” is the group’s debut effort.

Normally, this is where an artist gets fussy defending an act’s past while delicately stressing its latest effort is its best to date.

Crawford takes a different approach, which is probably why The Avett Brothers lasted for so long in relative obscurity.

“It’s fine,” Crawford said. “I mean, I like first of all us being under the radar. Neil Young said a long time ago you’re only new once, and that’s true for everything and everybody. If somebody says ‘I and Love and You’ is brand new, that’s great because just like me discovering a group and having to go backwards or forwards where I came into the catalog and all of the fun of that, they get to do that with us.”

What fans get to do next with The Avett Brothers is experience the band’s highly anticipated new studio effort, which is due out later this year. Rubin again is producing the project, but Crawford is quite tight-lipped about it. He talks only in generalities saying this about the album, “Hopefully, we just proceed onward.”

Invariably, aside from the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” bluegrass craze of the early 2000s, there’s no better time for the rootsy, folk Avett Brothers to release a new album considering the current feeding-frenzy zeitgeist that includes popular acts such as Mumford & Sons and Fleet Foxes.

Whether or not Crawford and company ascend to greater heights remains to be seen, but you get the sense the act isn’t banking on the current wave of artists for its self-identity or self-worth.

“We’ve survived on strong songwriting and because we like each other,” Crawford said. “These are things we’ve done smart and where we were lucky. Whatever this wave is, we were not alone. We haven’t particularly inspired anything great, but I’m saying that this is something that was possibly brewing under the surface in the late ’90s. We’re just trying to make original material work. We’re more [interested] in crafting a song rather than creating a sound. That’s what kept the attention coming in.”