“The album finds the bluegrass wunderkinds at their most mature, marrying their signature lush harmonies and intricate arrangements with a surprisingly affecting turn towards minimalism.” — Eric Bricker
In the near-decade since pop-bluegrass act Nickel Creek’s last full album — 2005’s excellent Why Should the Fire Die? — the band’s members have carved their own musical successes and identities: Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile worked alongside Yo-Yo Ma and formed the highly successful Punch Brothers; guitarist Sean Watkins lent his talents to Fiction Family; and fiddler Sara Watkins released a string of solo albums and toured with artists including The Decemberists and Jackson Browne.
Though they’ve taken so much time away from one another, all three sound right at home on A Dotted Line, Nickel Creek’s triumphant return. The album finds the bluegrass wunderkinds at their most mature, marrying their signature lush harmonies and intricate arrangements with a surprisingly affecting turn towards minimalism.
Take the album-opening one-two punch of “Rest of My Life” and “Destination.” “Rest of My Life” swings beautifully between plaintive strumming and pointed finger-picking while Sara Watkins’ lilting harmonies layer effortlessly behind Thile’s bluesy, hungover vocals (“Here we all lie/ In a dry sea of Solo cups/ With the sun in our eyes”). “Destination,” meanwhile, finds Sara leading a driving call and response: “This time I’ve got no hesitation/ and I’ll be movin’ on.”
Lyrically, these two set the tone for A Dotted Line, a golden ode to melancholy that finds the older, wiser Nickel Creek grappling with the steady passage of time, the crumbling of relationships and the lasting sting of regrets. “Christmas Eve” delicately spins the tale of a holiday break-up before building to a huge, sweeping refrain (“Please darling wait/ It’s not all over yet”) that flits between joyous and heartbreaking, drunkenly desperate and cautiously optimistic.
Elsewhere, Thile and the Watkins siblings play with the sort of indie rock arrangements that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Punch Brothers or Fiction Family record: “You Don’t Know What’s Going On” is a straight-up pop-punk cut, a skittering, up-tempo shout-along that finds Thile spitting fiery accusations like a half-broken machine gun, while “Love of Mine” lets him step into the sort of heartbreaking balladeer role his sugary, leading-man voice demands.
A Dotted Line isn’t all so grim. The couple of instrumental tracks (“Elsie” and “Elephant in the Corn”) are spry and sunny, a welcome reminder of the trio’s classical backgrounds, while “Hayloft” — a surprisingly faithful cover of a truly awful B-52s pastiche by Canada’s Mother Mother — finds the group playfully reveling in country-pop’s worst excesses.
Though the Watkins duo and Thile have made sizable contributions to Americana and bluegrass individually, A Dotted Line is a powerful, instantly likable reminder of how much they have to offer as a collective. Alternately heartbreaking and smile-inducing, dauntingly virtuosic and accessibly poppy, A Dotted Line is a return to form for some of progressive bluegrass’ once and future saviors.
