Nickel Creek - Self Titled

Remember Heidi? The one that used to write for the B Side? (well, she still will write - it's just been a while and I want to give her a hard time) But Heidi almost never gives me any suggestions of bands to review. About the only one she did was Nickel Creek. And she dropped this suggestion in the box about 6 months ago. So yeah. Finally getting to it now. This is a California based trio that has been making music since 1989. Their first gig was at a pizza place in '89 when most of the band members were around 10 years old. They had to drop out of school and be home schooled because the band wanted to play some festivals on the east coast and the school didn't like the idea of them missing so much time. Mainly the first two weeks and the last week. Crazy and cool at the same time that their family was willing to do that. This album was released in 2000 and was their first big label drop. It's certified gold status - so not a huge success at this point. They call this style 'progressive bluegrass' - and I suppose I can see that. It's very fiddle, mandolin heavy, which seems to paint that portrait fairly well. The acoustic sound and vocal is pretty neat. But it's not old school. It's still very polished sounding. I think if you were an old school bluegrass fan, you may not like this. It's very different. It's like 50's bluegrass meets Savage Garden or something. I like it. It's entertaining and good country music. This gets a big endorsement from the B Side today!

TRACK LISTING:
1. Ode to a Butterfly
2. Lighthouse's Tale, The
3. Out of the Woods
4. House of Tom Bombadil
5. Reasons Why
6. When You Come Back Down
7. Sweet Afton
8. Cuckoo's Nest
9. Hand Song, The
10. Robin and Marian
11. Fox, The
12. Pastures New

Listen To Samples

Top 3 Tracks:
1. Reasons Why
2. Ode To A Butterfly
3. The Fox

FINAL RATING:
3.5 out of 5 stars