This Side by Nickel Creek

This Side arrived on Sugar Hill in August 2002, the follow-up to the platinum self-titled album that made Nickel Creek's name two years earlier. The trio from Carlsbad, California, Chris Thile on mandolin with siblings Sara Watkins on fiddle and Sean Watkins on guitar, went back to Alison Krauss as producer, and they leaned hard on the progressive half of progressive bluegrass: the picking still dazzles, but the arrangements keep wandering off the porch toward something moodier and more modern.

The move that got people talking was a cover of Pavement's "Spit on a Stranger", an indie-rock song handed to a string band, and suddenly listeners who had never owned a bluegrass record were paying attention. The gamble paid off with the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 2003. Why Should the Fire Die? came next.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.