It's an old pop music verity: You can be an old softie, if you have the tunes to back it up. On the lead single from the Rick Rubin-prouced The Carpenter, due in September, not much has changed: the Avett Brothers are still indie's dippiest sentimentalists – "I want to love you and more/I want to find you and more/Where do you reside when you hide?" – and still among its sharpest melodists, with banjos plinking along to swooping power-pop melody worthy of Big Star.

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“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”