A.V. Club: Best of the Decade

Artist Pert Near Sandstone

  • Pert' Near Sandstone Jenn Baechle
  • Pert' Near Sandstone David Ellis

Making traditional bluegrass in this day and age might strike some as the musical equivalent of posing for an old-timey sepia photograph, but Pert Near Standstone is one of the reasons the Midwestern bluegrass revival make sense in the present tense. Hard as the Minnesota band tries to sound and look old-fashioned, the playing usually stings like a late-fall breeze off Lake Superior. Banjo, acoustic guitar, fiddle, and stand-up bass interlock so busily and brightly on the new album Out On A Spree that there almost isn't time to bask in the four-piece's vocal harmonies. 

Updated 11/02/2009

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