Avett Brothers, “The Avett Brothers.”

It’s not entirely a surprise for the Avett Brothers to look skyward to the heavens on their first long-player in five years. After all, Scott and Seth Avett are the grandsons of a preacher, and their 2020 EP, The Third Gleam, took on a strong spiritual bent. And the band’s fixation on the divine continues here.

The band’s self-titled album, which they have also said is an untitled album, continues to ask big questions; and once those go unanswered, the focus changes from outward to inward, from big gestures to oft-overlooked minute details the band connects with love and the divine itself.

Over the last few years, the band debuted a theater production (“Swept Away,” inspired by their music); Seth Avett released a solo album; bassist Bob Crawford created a podcast about John Quincy Adams; and Scott Avett, also a painter, has exhibited his art.

The Avett Brothers are clearly looking for deeper meanings anywhere they can find them. But as with The Third Gleam, this search overshadows the actual music more than it should. At nine songs, this album is just a song longer than its preceding EP. What sets it apart from that record are its faster-paced songs that provide a kick that was missing before.

And the biggest kick comes courtesy of “Love Of A Girl,” a sort of pop-punk tune with speedy yet melodic vocal delivery with puns a-plenty that could be more associated with Barenaked Ladies than the folky Avetts. The song also switches up the pace to keep things interesting. Despite the verses mentioning Ford Galaxies and Huckleberry Finn, there’s a whole story here, but instead of explaining the history of the Big Bang, it’s about the lengths one can go to express their intent to a love interest.

The other rocker is “Orion’s Belt,” a mid-tempo fiddle-tinged jam about looking for common ground with “the enemy.” And because the Avetts sing about “Too much racket up in D.C./ Whole lot of talking, money changing hands/ Little bitty men with big plans,” we know this song is about ideology on a bigger plane rather than the guy who cut you off on the interstate.

“Everybody thinks they know everyone else,” Scott Avett sings. “Looking for healing under a ceiling/ But it’s beyond Orion’s Belt.”

The big understanding is that while we all think our ways are the best ones, we’re all saying the “same words.”

Then there’s a bluegrass number in “Country Kid,” about the value of growing up in a place where you could make mistakes and grow a thick skin, and how the big city can’t take the country out of a country kid. Other than being a fun, danceable tune, it’s well constructed lyrically, with ideas carrying over from one verse to the next.

The remaining songs put the subject and lyricism above the delivery. The album begin and ends with ruminative five-minute songs in “Never Apart” and “We Are Loved.” “Life cannot be written/ It only can be lived,” Scott Avett sings over only a hint of strummed guitar. Eventually, the percussion and a banjo join in, but the song is such a slow burn that the instrumentation feels a bit like an afterthought to the poetic verses. It’s pleasant music, to be sure, and the Avett Brothers made the right decision to break these ruminations with the more uptempo songs.

At about seven minutes, “Cheap Coffee” is an even deeper dive, micro-focusing on brewing coffee, a baby’s first and second steps and much more. It ends with a child’s voice asking, “what is the highest number?” The music accompaniment is some blend of Southern and ambient; Daniel Lanois would like it, even though the album was produced by Rick Rubin.

“How long is now,” Avett sings in the opening of “Forever Now,” which continues asking questions without clear answers. “How far is heaven?/ Is it in the air we breathe?” In the band’s introduction to the album, it cited the late Catholic monk Thomas Keating, who said, “Silence is God’s first language – everything else is a poor translation.” And “2020 Regret” is the weightiest song of the bunch, about holding on to your rock as the ground shifts under you.

The Avett Brothers offers lots of breathing space in its meditations. But unlike the band’s last record, it doesn’t forget to let the instruments and its outward joy speak from time to time.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.