Nickel Creek: “Celebrants” (2023) – Album Review

Summary

Perhaps Nickel Creek’s most stark and cohesive album to date, Celebrants easily enthralls and entertains, but it emboldens itself in challenging and defying expectations. While perhaps not quite the record some fans might expect, Celebrants is an album longtime Nickel Creek fans should be expecting, especially those who have been enjoying the trio’s journey from young bluegrass prodigies to vanguards of the progressive acoustic genre.

Album Info

Introduction

It’s been nine years since Nickel Creek’s last album, 2014’s A Dotted Line. That album in turn followed another nine year gap between that and the band’s previous release, 2005’s Why Should The Fire Die. So for us Nickel Creek fans, the wait (while agonizing) was not entirely unexpected.

And it’s not that like individual band members were lounging and lollygagging about in the interim. Chris Thile (mandolin, vocals) took over hosting duties on Live From Here / A Prairie Home Companion alongside multiple side projects with classical music, Yo-Yo Ma, and Punch Brothers. Sara Watkins (fiddle, vocals) collaborated with the likes of Phoebe Bridgers, The Killers, Fiona Apple, and others, along with releasing two solo albums. Sean Watkins (guitar/vocals) performed live with Sara as the Watkins Family Hour, experimented with digital sound and art, and released three solo albums of his own.

Clearly they’ve been rather occupied, to say the least.

I’ve been a Nickel Creek fan for over 20 years now, as their 2000 self-titled release was and still is one of my favorite bluegrass albums. The three bandmates, who began performing together as children, impressed not only with their disarming vocal harmonies but their soulful virtuosity on their respective instruments.

(The phrase “child prodigy” gets thrown around too much lately, but these three were the real deal. Honest.)

Their 2002 follow-up This Side shocked me upon its release. I expected more of the same — melodic, sweeping, engaging bluegrass. What I got was something wholly other. More experimental, more diverse and musically innovative. The songwriting delved into deeper lyrical introspection and compositional maturity.

In other words, the album was progressive. In an interview they described the album as “acoustic progressive” and that label seemed entirely apropos. The bluegrass foundation was there, and still is, but Nickel Creek springboarded off of it to drive their music elsewhere.

(This Side is still my favorite album from the band.)

Whether you classify the band as Bluegrass, Acoustic Progressive, Americana, Folk, or Progressive Bluegrass (for the purposes of this blog, I’ll use the latter), what remains entirely undeniable is that Nickel Creek’s music is essentially a genre to itself.

All of this brings us to Celebrants, the band’s seventh studio album released in March 2023, which finds the band in perhaps their most progressive element yet. Like most of the world, Nickel Creek found themselves with a lot of time on their hands during the Pandemic. With few avenues open for live performances, they began to collaborate on songs again. The resulting record is a fascinating and compelling extrapolation of their compositional and performing skills. The bluegrass elements are all in play, but they are suffused with a diverse overlay of blues, jazz, folk, improvisational, even classical.

Featuring 18 album tracks, yet running just under an hour in length, Celebrants averages about 3:20 per track, retaining an aura of immediacy and purpose. Human relationships are questioned and celebrated here, especially after a long period of isolation (I’ve noticed the Pandemic seems to have inspired hosts of bands and artists with new literal and metaphorical perspectives). Celebrants is Nickel Creek at their most confident, innovative, and cohesive.

Review

The opening title track “Celebrants”, with its stomp-and-clap backbone and playful use of time signatures, assures us that undoubtedly we are in Nickel Creek territory. It’s a rousing opener, embracing longtime friends and fans, a tribute to fellowship and the reuniting after a long separation. For their fans perhaps, and for each other.

This thread continues in “Strangers”, perhaps one of the more traditional-sounding Nickel Creek tunes on the album. This one is a bit more conflicted, as it again welcomes longtime friends, but then wonders if it’s a real sense of rediscovery or if it’s driven by a memory of a closeness that no longer exists. “Strangers” exudes a haunting but heartfelt self-recrimination on emotional honesty, augmented by a percussive undercurrent that evokes the ticking of a clock. Time drives all emotion, especially the yearning for a past that may or may not have even existed.

“Water Under The Bridge, Pt.1” and “Water Under The Bridge, Pt. 2” run just over a minute apiece, quick ruminations about breaking through the barriers of truth with those closest to us. These two bookended pieces feel emotive and improvisational, the band working through the emotional content via their musical prowess. At long last, connection and verisimilitude prevail.

Listen
Listen to us trying to listen
To more and more life in these eddies
In our water under the bridge

Celebrants
Of the dissonance

“The Meadow” showcases a swirling dreaminess, one of the most deeply atmospheric tracks on the album. The way it evokes the fantastical world of a What-If Love Connection is undeniably potent, both heartbreaking and yet still hopeful and celebratory of the beauty of love, even when it doesn’t play out the way we want it to. Call it a contemporary take on The Left Banke’s “Pretty Ballerina”, if you will.

Sara roots “Thinnest Wall” with a bluesy vocal over a folk musical accompaniment. This song is a quirky, slinky piece, with some tasty soloing from Sean and Chris and an uncomfortable (but totally engaging) sense of musical uncertainty from the bridge to the final chorus.

“Going Out…”and “…Despite The Weather” comprise the second of the album’s overt bookended tracks. Both being instrumental numbers (and linked by ellipses, which I’d like to remind the Internet are NOT the same as periods), the first feels spirited and adventurous, evoking a “let’s go outside and DO something!” childlike sense of promise and fun. It turns slightly sinister towards the midsection before returning to its earlier spiritedness (albeit still touched by a pervading sense of unease). The latter track evokes darker weather, sturm and drang, but in the end the tumult feels a lot less… tumultuous. What makes both tracks so compelling is the band doing what they’ve always done best: taking their individual musical talents and incorporating them into a seamless musical whole that surpasses the sum of their parts.

“Holding Pattern” glides us into gentler territory, a soft ballad that is as direct and impacting as it is easygoing and melodic. Chris and Sean’s mandolin and guitar lines converge into an enchanting musical backdrop, as the song’s overtly pandemic-related subject matter provides reassurance between lovers as the world shuts down around them.

“Where The Long Line Leads” has Sara’s slightly distorted vocals driving us through a rip-roaring country number about making the best of life while we can. A slice of spirited devil-may-care sass, the song delivers us to the doorstep of “Goddamned Saint”. The vibrant strings of the opening segment segues into a slower midsection with an off-kilter transition, a repeating pattern of transitions that continues throughout the track. I can’t quite wrap my brain around “Goddamned Saint”; at times it seems so experimental and intentionally structurally discordant that I don’t know what to make of it. It’s trying something, but it’s not quite landing with me.

“Stone’s Throw” away takes us back into a more straightforward Nickel Creek area, which is by no means a slight, because this is a great albeit bittersweet track. Sean provides a standout vocal performance in this uptempo number. We then return to the previous track with “Goddamned Saint (Reprise)” which drops a one minute coda on the aforementioned number. It’s OK, insomuch as that it’s mostly harmless. There’s a bit of a thematic link about throwing stones and towers falling that connect the “Goddamned Saint” tracks and “Stone’s Throw”, but it’s more clever than profound.

Chris strums a ukulele-like opening as Sara takes vocals on “From The Beach”, a slower number that exalts the pleasures of relinquishing self-purpose and floating along with the currents of life. It also has this verse, which may comprise my favorite lyrics on the album

Towel ho, Sweet Devolver
Life is but a dream
Is but a sea
And I don’t think I’ll ever leave
Since I’ve found myself
A little more
Naive

Sara’s delivery of that last word made the hair on my arm stand up on end. Make of that whatever thou wilt.

A bit of an oddball, “To The Airport” charms with its off-kilter delivery. The allegories of a TSA line being longer than your emotional fuse, a mom challenging a man who is loudly complaining about her screaming toddler, and our silent resentment when we don’t get the seat or upgrade we want, are all placed together against a broader universal truth. We don’t own the world, but we all have to soar through it together. What shines through here (besides the always impeccable vocals and musicianship) is how earnest this plea feels. With the direct specificity of its subject matter, it broaches universality from a stronger and more relatable perspective.

“Hollywood Ending” finds Sean detailing a cautionary tale of the costs of dream chasing. Perhaps not literally a “Hollywood” tale, but it evokes classic parables of chasing the big lights while the smaller, brighter ones start to dim away. The song doesn’t entirely connect with me; it’s lyrically wonderful, but the music feels somewhat incomplete to my ears. As if there is some essential connective tissue that isn’t quite there.

The album reaches its final stretch as “New Blood” twists and enthralls, succeeding with labyrinthine vocals from the trio alongside their usual musical skillfulness. This one reminds us that we only succeed at innovation when we challenge ourselves with new ideas, new concepts, and/or new people. This track is an easy standout.

“Failure Isn’t Forever” closes the record with a strong musical assurance of what its title proposes, and perhaps delivers something of a rebuke to “From The Beach”: that we take our licks in life and we fall, but we only fail when we stop trying and let go. “Failure Isn’t Forever”, to nick a phrase from Neil Gaiman, puts up all the chairs and turns the lights off behind us, concluding the album with musical flourish and lyrical certainty.

And in closing…

We’ve come full circle, haven’t we? Celebrants delivers a complete party that began with the title track and ended with “Failure Isn’t Forever”: we welcome old friends, talk through life together, regale in each others’ stories, challenge one another, lament our losses, praise our victories, and leave at the end of the evening with hope and determination.

Perhaps Nickel Creek’s most stark and cohesive album to date, Celebrants enthralls and entertains but also emboldens itself in challenging and defying expectations. Celebrants perhaps isn’t quite the album that many Nickel Creek fans might expect. It’s definitely a wind sprint further away from their more straightforward bluegrass-meets-indie-folk of the early 2000s. And yet Celebrants is indeed the album many longtime Nickel Creek fans should expect, especially those fans who have been enjoying the trio’s journey from young bluegrass prodigies to vanguards of the progressive acoustic genre.

What similar albums does ChatGPT recommend?

While it behooves me to remind my readers that everything you just read is 100% Mills, let’s ask our friendly neighborhood AI for some similar album recommendations.

Based on the review and the genre of Progressive Bluegrass, I recommend the following five albums:

1. Punch Brothers – “The Phosphorescent Blues” (2015) The Punch Brothers, featuring Chris Thile of Nickel Creek, explore progressive bluegrass with intricate arrangements, blending traditional bluegrass with elements of classical, jazz, and pop.

2. Béla Fleck and the Flecktones – “Left of Cool” (1998) Béla Fleck and the Flecktones incorporate a unique blend of bluegrass, jazz, and world music elements, showcasing virtuosic musicianship, particularly with Béla Fleck on banjo.

3. Crooked Still – “Shaken by a Low Sound” (2006) Crooked Still offers a fresh take on traditional bluegrass with innovative instrumentation, including cello and double bass, and a focus on haunting harmonies and reimagined folk songs.

4. The Infamous Stringdusters – “Laws of Gravity” (2017) The Infamous Stringdusters combine elements of traditional bluegrass with contemporary influences, offering tight vocal harmonies and instrumental interplay, resulting in a modern, energetic sound.

5. Sarah Jarosz – “World on the Ground” (2020) Sarah Jarosz, a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, blends bluegrass, folk, and Americana influences in her introspective and emotive songwriting, showcasing her unique voice and instrumental prowess.

These albums represent a range of progressive bluegrass styles and should appeal to fans of Nickel Creek’s genre-blending approach.