Nickel Creek
Why Should the Fire Die?
In popular music, virtuosity guarantees nothing; the rock era is littered with the corpses of groups featuring top instrumentalists at each position. Bands that once showed so much promise crash and burn, proving once again that technique and complexity rarely mean much unless matched with distinctive songwriting or catchy arrangements. As often as not, bands of outstanding musicians tend to appeal mostly to other musicians, math geeks or those who listen with their heads more than their hearts.
Nickel Creek know all about this dilemma. Launched in 1989 by three elementary-school-age prodigies, the band grew up with the kind of expectations usually reserved for 13-year-olds enrolled at MIT. Chris Thile was considered the next generation's most promising mandolinist by age 12, and in 1994, at 13, he released his first solo album. By 2000, when Nickel Creek signed with acoustic-music kingmakers Sugar Hill Records, they were under the guidance of Alison Krauss and collaborating with the greatest players in their field, including Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor, Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and Tim O'Brien.
From the start, the band—Thile, guitarist Sean Watkins and his sister, fiddler Sara Watkins—set their sights high. Their arrangements were complex, as would be expected. They refused to be pigeonholed, mixing and matching genres without staying true to any, an approach that disappointed many in the bluegrass community and some in the country music world, but ultimately earned them a devoted following. Moreover, their songs mixed personal angst and unfettered idealism with flighty allegorical references—their first album opened with an instrumental titled "Ode to a Butterfly," followed by a song told from the viewpoint of a lighthouse.
Of course, for many bands, such artsy ambitions only provide bullets for their execution. And, at times, Nickel Creek can be a mite precious. Still, their two previous Sugar Hill albums—2000's Nickel Creek and 2002's This Side—are flush with moments of glorious interplay and tunes that are alternately rousing, beautiful or touching. They're at their best live, balancing improvisation with sharply turned group interplay, all the while displaying an enthusiasm and commitment that wins over even formalists and hardened skeptics.
But it's with their third album, Why Should the Fire Die?, that Nickel Creek climb beyond great improvisers and arrangers to become a truly great recording band. Clearly they've improved as songwriters, but it's more than that: judging from the gutsy content of the lyrics, they've matured and undergone the usual transformative experiences that all of us face when moving into our early 20s. The lyrics suggest that they've faced soul-shaking highs and lows. It's not that the songs are autobiographical, although some may be; it's that they've gotten a handle on how to draw on their own emotional exploits to create compelling narratives.
Perhaps most telling of all, they're not afraid to assume less-than-flattering points of view. One of the album's most searing songs is "Helena," in which Thile portrays a guy breaking up with a woman with whom he's been having an affair. Told in first-person and only revealing his side of the conversation, it unfolds without a chorus; opening with a sweetly strummed mandolin, the guy tenderly tries to convince the woman that it's his heart that's breaking and he wishes that his girlfriend would give him a reason to leave.
But as the tempo starts to pick up, Thile begins to reveal the wolf inside his sheepish words, as it becomes clear he's primarily trying to keep her from revealing his betrayal to his girlfriend. When he tells her everyone and everything will be just fine, the woman starts to storm off, and the singer bares his fangs as a double-kick-drum rushes in with thunderous spite. "You're not that sweet and neither is she," he seethes, going for the jugular. "Go ahead and tell her anything you want, 'cause Helena, guys like me never sleep alone at night."
Elsewhere, the trio show how they've grown as arrangers, too, bringing a remarkable depth to their artfully shifting song structures, which rely heavily on three-part interplay. From the beautiful rendering of the title song to the thunderous way they weave and stomp through rockers like "When in Rome" to the layered textures of "Jealous of the Moon," they show their strengths as a cohesive unit rather than as talented individualists.
They've all become better singers, too. Their voices are limited in ways their musicianship isn't, but they no longer challenge themselves beyond their abilities. Instead, they take advantage of the strengths each singer has, whether it's the gentle expressiveness of Sara Watkins' soprano on Bob Dylan's "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" or the subtle bite Sean Watkins brings to "Somebody More Like You."
Until now, Nickel Creek's success has always been qualified—even their biggest boosters predicted bigger, better things to come. Why Should the Fire Die? is an out-and-out triumph, in part because it manages to provide surprises no one could have seen coming.
