Punch Brothers - Who's Feeling Young Now? (2012)

Punch Brothers third Nonesuch disc, Who's Feeling Young Now?, recorded in Nashville and produced and engineered by Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings of Leon, Modest Mouse, Josh Ritter), contains some of the most exhilaratingly direct, sonically daring performances the group has ever recorded. As the five members have matured together on the road and in the studio, their approach to writing and performing has, conversely, become looser, simpler, and, as the album title suggests, more unaffectedly youthful. At this point, virtuosity is a given among these already prodigious players; the operative word for Who's Feeling Young Now? is camaraderie.

The Village Voice has called Punch Brothers, who formed in 2006 at the behest of mandolin virtuoso and former Nickel Creek singer Chris Thile, "one of the greatest young bands in the country, bluegrass or otherwise." Similarly, the New York Times in reviewing the band's 2010 release Antifogmatic declared, "Their music is as radical as progressive bluegrass (or newgrass, or new acoustic music) can be." And on Who's Feeling Young Now? Punch Brothers are clearly having quick-witted fun. The title song—featuring Paul Kowert's rumbling bass, Gabe Witcher's skittering violin and Thile's wailing multi-tracked vocals—is almost like hard-charging string-band punk rock. Brilliant opening cut "Movement and Location," on the other hand, is practically Steve Reich-ian, thanks to Chris Eldridge's rhythmically pulsing guitar, Kowert's bass and Noam Pikelny's banjo lines, yet it also boasts a decidedly spontaneous spirit. In fact, it came together over a matter of minutes in Thile's New York City living room, where the band has done some of its most inspired jamming.

Following a series of European shows with Amos Lee, Punch Brothers will celebrate the release of Who's Feeling Young Now? with dates in major cities throughout the U.S., starting at the Boston–area Somerville Theatre on February 23. The band wound up 2011 with an impressive range of side projects to its credit. Pikelny, the first recipient of the annual Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, released an acclaimed solo disc, Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail, produced by Witcher. Eldridge joined Pikelny on his tour; Kowert played live trio dates and made a record called The Secret History with guitarist Jordan Tice. The peripatetic Thile recorded a duo set with Brooklyn guitar savant Michael Daves, the Grammy Award-nominated Sleep With One Eye Open; released The Goat Rodeo Sessions, with Yo–Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Stuart Duncan; and performed live in London with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau.

As guitarist Eldridge puts it, "Every little side project that we've done has helped us come back to Punch Brothers with new ideas and new energy and a new sense of confidence, a righteous need to create stuff."