mselves as "the most important folk group to emerge from Boson since the early sixties" (Boston Globe), Crooked Still announced that cellist Rushad Eggleston would leave the group in November of 2007. The quintet became five with the addition of fiddler Brittany Haas and Tristan Clarridge on cello and second fiddle. If the first album from the new line-up is any indication, success for this young band will be explosive. Crooked Still continues to perform one of the most compelling forms of alternative bluegrass and string band music today.

Review

"The most cohesive of the Boston dark-folk/bluegrass band's three excellent albums -- chilling and otherworldly, what fantasy writers like to call 'eldritch.'" -- USA Today

36:T746,So I waited awhile to do this review, as I wanted to wait for this album to sink in. The first 2 albums were 2 of my favorite 10-20 albums of all time, any band, any genre. Then something happened between the 2nd and 3rd albums: Rushad Eggleston, the original cellist, left the band.For me, Rushad is who drew me to the band in the first place. Someone said "you have to come see this guy play the cello." I did, and I fell in love with the whole band. So I decided to give this 3rd album a try even though the band subtracted Eggleston and added another cellist and the fiddler.At first I plain did not like it. But I held off on writing the review, b/c I wanted to give them a fair chance. Over time, the album improved to be "OK" in my book. That is all. Rushad is an amazing talent that just cannot be replaced. Don't get me wrong, the new cellist is excellent. A very very good musician. But if you replaced Jimi Hendrix with say, some guitarist from the Cleveland Orchestra, it's just not going to be the same.Another thing is the song selection. I thought it was not nearly as good in this album as in the first 2. To me, here are the outstanding songs by album:Album 1, "Hop High":