My introduction to the Avett Brothers and still my favorite CD of theirs. Stylistically diverse, mixing the raucous and upbeat (“Nothing Short of Thankful”, “Hard Worker”) with the gorgeous and tender (“The New Love Song”, “Swept Away (Sentimental Version)"). Includes songs (“At The Beach”, “Please Pardon Yourself”) that remain staples of their live show to this day and also contains the prettiest of the pretty girl songs, “Pretty Girl at the Airport.” Climaxes with the anthemic “Salvation Song”, the clearest statement of purpose ever penned by a band.

In a radio interview in October 2004, Scott explained the meaning of Mignonette:

“Mignonette is named after a book that our father turned us on to called “A Custom of the Sea.” Mignonette is a flower that looks much like a weed but has a very, very sweet smell. We’ve been brought up to believe that if the car was fast and ran pure and clean, that it was a lot better than the car that looked good and ran so so. So with that in mind you get the name and it applied to us in that way. The way we tried to apply it in the record, in the story it’s the name of the ship that goes down off the coast of Africa in the late 1800s and four men are faced with a decision. The custom of the sea means when you’re in a life raft, you draw lots. Whoever picks the shortest one in the moment of dying, in the moment of starving, gets eaten. In the story, the youngest who was drinking sea water was dying, he had sealed his fate. Tom Dudley, the captain, made the decision that we’re going to kill him, we’re not going to draw lots, it’s the right thing to do. They were discovered I believe it was 29 or 25 days later, they ate him on the 23rd day. When faced with the decision to tell the truth or not and with all the room in the world to get rid of whatever was left and say the body went down with the ship, the Mignonette, he said we tell the truth. The truth will save us, even if it hangs us, it’s the right thing to do. The way we try to apply it is hopefully we’re writing songs with truth that back them up. Hopefully in our songs, we’re using truth, even if it’s not a true story, it’s a true emotion, something with truth. We can’t claim to be perfect or great in this and we’re very young to know much. But we’re trying and it’s more about what we’re aspiring to be.”