It’s one thing to assemble a songwriter’s round and invite the participants to chime in behind each other if they feel like it, off-the-cuff harmonizing here, guess-the-chord-changes soloing there. This is a different animal: a five-way collaboration between top-flight contemporary bluegrass songwriting talent that actually has the feel of a bona fide band — one that’s learned material and worked out arrangements beforehand. These five are certainly up to the task. There’s banjo-playing Cia Cherryholmes (formerly of the family band Cherryholmes, now of husband-wife duo Stetson and Cia), fiddler Jeremy Garrett (of the progressive outfit Infamous Stringdusters), Josh Shilling (Mountain Heart’s soul-pop singer/pianist), mandolin player Sierra Hull (virtuosic leader of her own group) and bassist Jon Weisberger (anchor of Chris Jones and the Night Drivers and frequent Scene contributor). There’ve already been plenty of collaborations between them, Cherryholmes singing on Shilling’s recent EP, Garrett and Weisberger supplying material to the Stringdusters’ latest, and Weisberger co-writing with almost everybody else. So they certainly won’t be hurting for new or proven, exploratory or traditional songs.
— Jewly Hight