Kenny & Amanda Smith Band – Always Never Enough

Kenny & Amanda Smith, the IBMA’s Emerging Artists of the Year in 2003, are back with several new band members and a new batch of songs, and the result is a strong third album that deserves a hearing well beyond the usual bluegrass audience.

A member of the group since its founding, banjoist Steve Huber contributes a fine measure of both inventiveness and drive, while new mandolinist Jason Robertson displays a degree of taste unusual in a picker just leaving his teens. Still, the most immediately striking addition is young bassist Alan Bartram, who offers not only a solid rhythmic anchor but sensitive, nuanced vocals, including several leads. Like Kenny’s guitar playing, the Smiths’ singing has steadily improved from an already impressive starting point; with Bartram rounding out the trios, Always Never Enough heads for even higher ground.

The material includes tracks from traditionally grounded but modern writers Becky Buller and Swedish bluegrasser Thomas Blom, as well as veteran Hugh Prestwood, whose “Gulf Stream Dreaming” Kenny has been singing for years. The team of Steve Gulley (Mountain Heart) and Tim Stafford (Blue Highway) contribute the title track and arguably the strongest cut, “Pacific Time”, which gets a perfectly spare, wistful reading that shows this band knows exactly what to do with a good song.