Nonesuch

In the world of acoustic music, mandolinist Chris Thile is arguably the most elastic and wildly imaginative player/singer/composer of his generation. He has met his matches in his fellow Punch Brothers: guitarist Chris Eldridge, Leftover Salmon banjo player Noam Pikelny, fiddler Gabe Witcher and bassist Paul Kowert. The Brothers’ latest outing is better than the best of all their worlds – channeling the boundless, intricate and none-too-brief chamber arrangements into a more song-focused approach like that of Thile’s first post-Nickel Creek album, How to Grow a Woman from the Ground. These 10 songs are exhilaratingly complex, but they’re also focused. Bait-and-switch time signatures give way to a sort of pre-war jazz in “Don’t Need No” while “Alex” conjures a sentimental ballad of the forty-something set and executes it with impossibly nimble stringed syncopation before giving way to postmodern power-pop.