Nickel Creek
Album: A Dotted Line
Label: Nonesuch
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.nickelcreek.com

I'm not quite sure what's happened here. I should be shouting from the rooftops that one of the most intriguing and influential bands to emerge from the fringes of bluegrass has reconvened. For at long last, after a self-imposed "indefinite hiatus" sabbatical of around six years, during which Chris Thile and Sara Watkins have been pursuing both their own solo ventures and assorted collaborations with other musicians, here's a brand new Nickel Creek CD, the impetus for which was, we learn, the band's impending 25th anniversary (unbelievably, bearing in mind that their debut on record didn't appear until 2000). And yet I'm less than won over, indeed uncharacteristically disappointed, even after living with the new CD for a few months (to give it time and the chance to grow into my affections).

I must say that on a purely musical level there's nothing amiss, with all the signature features of the Nickel Creek sound intact: typically breathtaking and technically brilliant instrumental work, imaginative exploratory adventures in music, and those superb sibling-type vocal harmonies between Chris, Sara and Sean. But, given the progress that has been made in the band members' songwriting over the past dozen or so years, I'm left rather unmoved by the six original group-co-written songs on this new record, the most memorable perhaps being 21st Of May and Love Of Mine, with Destination coming an appealing enough second. And there's a nicely straight, heartfelt cover of Sam Phillips' Where Is Love Now? - by which time, tucked away right at the end of the record, it's almost too late. The band has attempted (albeit enthusiastically) to absorb influences from contemporary pop, but it sometimes feels rather like these have been spat out without quite being digested, and tracks like the Beatlesque You Don't Know What's Going On just feel over-noisy, whereas their misguided cover of Mother Mother's Hayloft just feels out of place here. Thankfully perhaps, the tracklist is completed by two instrumental tracks, of which the episodic, experimental ramblings of Elephant In The Corn come off the better.

I don't ever have a problem with the band moving increasingly away from their bluegrass roots, but there doesn't seem any sense of unity in this latest collection either. It's not bad, sure, but neither is it quite the knockout comeback I was expecting from this crack outfit.

David Kidman