★★★★★
Is this the best postmodern bluegrass album ever? On this, a track-by-track recreation of Kenny Baker's 1977 album Plays Bill Monroe, Pikelny offers up what is a weird, muddled carbon copy-cum-tribute to the bygone days of bluegrass. That might sound critical, but I don't mean it to be. After all, folk musicians have been cribbing material from their predecessors for as long back as anyone can remember, ranging from the alt-country explosion of the 1990s that began with Uncle Tupelo covering...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-02-08
★★★★★
Compass If you've heard Noam Pikelny's recent work with postmodern acoustic adventurers the Punch Brothers, his second solo album-- Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail --is bound to feel like a straightforward affair. That's not to say that it's lacking in complex ideas...
- www.relix.com
2011-11-10
★★★★★
Thanks in no small part to the novelty of actor Steve Martin's high-profile and legitimately great The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo, the banjo is having something of a "moment," which works out well for Noam Pikelny...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2011-11-03