Hell on Church Street

I have loved Chris Thile since the 90s with Nickel Creek. I’ve seen him live countless times at Merlefest and other venues. More so is my love and admiration for Tony Rice. With that said, of the 11 tracks on this album, there are two that are no where near the standard you’d expect from Thile and the “Brothers”. The bands version of “Last Thing On My Mind”, was taken too far in the land of mysticism and it seemed as if they were trying way to hard to put their own spin on a truly great classic song. I love to hear new versions of a classic; in fact “One More Night” is spectacular! But “Last thing on my mind” is very hard to listen to, way to slow and barely has a melody. With this bands level of harmonies and picking, I was looking forward to hearing this version, but was extremely disappointed. However, that song does not hold a candle to their abysmal version of one of the greatest fiddle times of all time (and one of Tony Rice’s favorites). I’m speaking of their version of Gold Rush. It’s 2 minutes and 45 seconds of what I though was a random tuning session waiting to start the song, but much to my surprise, the song never began. It’s the most random, odd and quite frankly disturbing mixture of “notes” and noises I’ve ever heard. It seems as if they had no clue what was going on and is a truly horrific version of a classic that never even came close to sounding anything like Gold Rush…ever! With that said, there are some excellent songs on this remake. As I said earlier, One More Night was put together perfectly and is a great example of putting a new spin on an old tune that is very enjoyable to listen to. The same goes for The title tack, Church Street Blues. Eldridge’s last few seconds of the homage to the original is truly addicting to listen to and I can get enough of it! As bad as Gold Rush was, the opposite goes for Cattle in the Cane. Spectacular! The rest of the album was enjoyable and I’m glad I downloaded it. I just wish that the two aforementioned songs could be changed. Sometimes, too much liberty of such wonderful and recognizable classics takes it to a place that diminishes the greatness that the tune truly is.

Chess Wizard must not realize this is a Tribute to Tony Rice. I was just turned on to this today, I've only heard 2 tracks, but those were heartfelt. Rice was one of the greatest guitarists/singers in all of Blue Grass/New Grass and Folk. I WILL BE ADDING THIS TO MY COLLECTION !

best PB album in a while, but still has that Thile self-obsessed hipster ooze about it.

I like the old world feel of the music, The mixing of the string instruments, the calm upbeat mood it puts me into. The music feels like something current and tied to the 1800s all at the same time. Very folksy in the use of The voices harmonizing with stringed instrumentals.

Sad to say but I think my preorder days are over with Punch Brothers. The Phosphorescent Blues days are gone and they’re probably not coming back. There are a few decent tunes here but nothing as great as their older stuff. Now it’s Punch Brothers so the instrumental stuff is still the stuff of legend. May be worth it for many for the instrumental talent alone. Not for me. I’m not done with Punch Bros but I don’t see myself dropping money on an entire album anymore before checking it out on YouTube or Spotify. This really breaks my heart. Not because it’s bad at all. It’s just not for me anymore.