Colorado bluegrass-heads Yonder Mountain String Band spin the genre
deep into jam-band land on their fifth album. They’ve been doing this
for more than a decade, but The Show sounds more like the
Grateful Dead than Bill Monroe this time. The quartet flashes its
virtuosity at every turn: fancy picking here, speed-of-light fretwork
there. They even score a hook or two (“Complicated,” “Dreams”). But on
some cuts — like the nearly eight-minute “Honestly” and the
closing “Casualty,” which runs more than six minutes — they
undercut one of bluegrass’ prime assets: brevity. But that’s the jam
band in them taking over. When they stick to the mandolin and banjo
strumming they do best, it’s show-offy without the baggage or plodding
self-indulgence that usually weighs down the music. — Michael
Gallucci
This article appears in Sep 2-8, 2009.
