Maybe they just couldn’t handle the pressure. I mean, let’s face
\nit; all it seems I’ve done for the last two years is tell you how
\ndamned good Nickel Creek and their solo incarnations — Chris Thile
\nand Sean Watkins — are. So I went into the second album from
\nnewgrass wunderkinder Nickel Creek,
\nThis Side<\/i>, expecting great things, and came away strangely
\nunsatisfied.<\/p>\n
Worst thing is, I can’t tell you why. A lot of things on here
\nare done right. The musicianship of Thile, Watkins, and Sara
\nWatkins is, as usual, stellar. So one supposes the answer needs to
\nlie somewhere else. After multiple listens — and I do mean
\nmultiple — I think, however, I have three possible answers.<\/p>\n
One, the overall sound of the album. I don’t know whether to
\nblame the engineer, the production, or the session bass players
\n(more about that in a moment), but the bottom end seems to have
\ngotten knocked out of
\nThis Side<\/i>. The production and engineering is competent, but
\nseems to shortchange the sound on the deep end of things. A track
\nlike “Smoothie Song”, the CD’s opener, rarely seems to really
\nresonate in the deep end of the harmonic range; there’s no damn
\ncojones to it.<\/p>\n
Second is the songwriting. There are some good band-penned songs
\non this CD (specifically “Speak”, “Seven Wonders” and “This Side”).
\nBut “Green and Gray” and “Brand New Sidewalk” just didn’t work for
\nme at all, and two of the three covers (“Hanging By A Thread” and
\nCarrie Newcomer’s “I Should’ve Known Better”) seem forced and
\nawkward. An uneven mix of songs at best; there’s no “Reasons Why”
\nor “When You Come Back Down” on
\nThis Side<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Finally is the bass sound — or the absence thereof. Bass was
\nprovided by what seems to be two session players; nowhere is it
\nreally featured, and often it’s drowned in the mix; again, the
\nalbum seems unsupported and thin in many areas. It’s interesting
\nthat they are touring with an entirely different bassist, Derek
\nJones; perhaps that’s why.<\/p>\n
There are a couple of excellent tracks on the CD. “Seven
\nWonders” is poignant and wistful, “Beauty And The Mess” breaks out
\nof the thin sound with a driving, bass-heavy sound, and “House
\nCarpenter” is a great cover of a traditional band.<\/p>\n
In the long run, though,
\nThis Side<\/i> suffers from a shallow sophomore slump. There are
\ntimes where Nickel Creek shows the brilliance they captured on
\ntheir first CD, but there just aren’t enough of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6448],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37449","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-nickel-creek","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37449"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37449"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}