Punch Brothers’ first three albums, particularly 2010’s Antifogmatic and 2012’s Who’s Feeling Young Now?, stand out for their innovative arrangements; instrumental virtuosity, particularly founder Chris Thile’s mandolin fusillades; and riveting interplays, pushing the bluegrass genre to new heights.
With 2015’s The Phosphorescent Blues, produced by T Bone Burnett, the group balanced their instrumental acumen and songwriting ambitions. While they again forged blazing instrumental segments and, for the first time, made use of drum parts (recruiting session percussionist Jay Bellerose), they also explored down-tempo and atmospheric gestalts.
2018’s All Ashore and 2022’s Hell on Church Street (the latter a reconfiguration of and tribute to Tony Rice’s 1983 release, Church Street Blues) showed the band frequently focusing on vocal performances, including mostly well-executed harmonies. The albums underscored Punch Brothers’ expanding MO, though their songcraft occasionally landed as strained, the instrumentation abstruse. All in all, the projects lacked the immediacy of earlier work.
