Editorial Review:

Album Description:
It takes courage to release the securityof the familiar and embrace change. After five years of touring and establishing themselves as 'the most important folk group to emerge from Boston since the early 60's' (Boston Globe) , Crooked Still announced that cellist Rushad Eggleston would leave the group in November of 2007. The band that had been drawing invitations from huge events like the historic Newport and Telluride Folk Festivals, and numerous rave reviews from publications like USA Today and Interview Magazine, was now on the cusp of a new musical chapter. The quintet became five with the addition of fiddler Brittany Haas and Tristan Clarridge on cello and second fiddle. If the first album from the new line-up is any indication, success for this young band will be explosive. Crooked Still continues to perform one of the most compelling forms of alternative bluegrass and string band music today.



Still Crooked is an ensemble effort of inspired music making that moves the bands' impossible to pigeonhole style in new directions while honoring their folk roots.Crooked Still's genre bending sound is the combination of five distinctive talents who are not content to limit themselves to any one project or style of music. While Crooked Still is the main band for these talented players, all are involved in other projects including Aoife O'Donovan's work with Solas and Sometymes Why and Gregory Liszt's turn with the Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions Band.









Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

---

Related Items:
     see more

Related Items:

• Shaken by a Low Sound
• Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet
• All I Intended to Be
• Hop High
• Secrets
• see more

---

Disc 1:

1. Undone in Sorrow - Crooked Still, Reed, Ola Belle
2. The Absentee
3. Captain, Captain
4. Tell Her to Come Back Home
5. Low Down and Dirty - Crooked Still, O'Donovan, Aoife
6. Oh, Agamemnon - Crooked Still, Haas, Brittany
7. Pharaoh
8. Florence - Crooked Still, Carter, T.W.
9. Did You Sleep Well? - Crooked Still, Taylor, Nathan
10. Poor Ellen Smith
11. Wading Deep Waters
12. Baby, What's Wrong with You? - Crooked Still, Hurt, John

Rating: - * Good Music! ... I had never heard of this group until I heard them on you tube. I love them! Great talent! Inspires me to play better!! Rating: - * Bluegrass Fan ... Blue grass with an edge. Has a modern touch, but not too much to ruin the traditional flavor. Thoroughly enjoyed almost every track. Rating: - * gorgeous music ... the poignant vocals float over a lively and rhythmic wave of instrumentation. the ballads are lovely and there is good variety in terms of the moods of the different pieces. Rating: - * Great recording from a brilliant band ... OK, imagine, if you will, an old wooden railroad bridge across a deep chasm somewhere in the wilderness. Two trains approach from the opposite directions: one is carrying a brilliant string quartet of the finest young classical musicians from the most demanding music schools. The other train is bearing a fantastic bluegrass band with one of the greatest banjo players of the time. They collide head-on. And yet miraculously and mysteriously, out of the inferno strides five young survivors. Somehow spared by a higher power of both darkness and light to create a sound greater than the sum of the parts. That's Crooked Still. Think about this-- when The Boss was putting together his Seeger Sessions band, he called Greg Liszt to play banjo. Aoife O'Donovan is the daughter of Brian O'Donovan. Guests include Tim O'Brien and Casey Driessen. My favorite track is the very VERY scary "Did You Sleep Well?" "Murdergrass" at it's finest (Hmmmn, or is it?) I grant you, some people won't get it. OK, the title is too precious (It should really be called "Undone in Sorrow" a GREAT song from Olla Belle Reed, a GREAT American musician) These cats are in the very forefront of the incredible revival of world class stringbands such as the Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Duhks, Uncle Earl and Old Crow medicine Show. Yes, they recently have some new members, but they didn't rebuild, they reloaded. Rating: - * Chamber Bluegrass ... Or "Artgrass," as I call it. They have a cello player. Enough said. This is bluegrass for aesthetes and city slickers who wouldn't be caught dead at a barn dance or revival meeting. The girl singer is really annoying, too; all breathy and fragile and folky. I could barely understand the lyrics she was singing. The musicianship is of a high level, but to what end? There seems to be nothing about life that these folks wish to communicate to the listener. The music sounds like an academic exercise. What really grips these folks? Where does life grab them? This CD offers no clues.