Chatham County Line – IV

Chatham County Line were never going to be the world’s best bluegrass band. Raised on classic rock ‘n’ roll and well-schooled in traditional country, they turned to bluegrass partly to grow as musicians, a goal they more than met with their first three albums. But IBMA supersessions were not their destiny; rather, their soul has always been in songwriting, and in the broader landscape of American roots music.

Those strengths are at the fore with IV, easily the foursome’s finest album to date. Producer Chris Stamey provides pristine clarity for the material, which includes several of the best songs lead singer and guitarist Dave Wilson has ever written.

None are better than the leadoff track, “Chip Of A Star”, which launches with Chandler Holt’s indelible banjo riff and coasts home on the wings of Greg Readling’s swooning steel guitar. Allowing Readling, the band’s upright bassist, more room to roam on steel was a key transformation on IV; that much is clear from his exquisitely emotional runs on Wilson’s five-minute country-soul ballad “Sweet Eviction”, the disc’s most enduring track.

Bluegrass is still part of the picture as well. Holt’s “Clear Blue Sky” and mandolinist/fiddler John Teer’s “Paige” are two-minute instrumental interludes; the bluegrass blueprint of tight vocal harmonies and strong string-picking remains the backbone for most of the album’s arrangements. But the reins have been loosened, and the result is that Chatham County Line has finally delivered the first-rate record that was lurking within their grasp all along.