Not Exactly Bluegrass

While it would be easy at the outset to classify Mipso as just another band of bluegrass wannabes, such a blanket categorization would do both the band and those unawares a grave injustice.

While this Chapel Hill-based quartet certainly possess all the qualifications needed to make it as an effective back porch bunch, they also offer up an unrepentant attitude that suggests they’re more than a typical band of merry minstrels.

We’ll be gone again
And I know what I’ll do
When it’s time to choose between this town and you

This, they declare on the robust “Marianne,” one of many songs that make little differentiation between cause and commitment. On a bittersweet ballad like “Momma,” they describe the anguish of being estranged from both family and faith — a theme echoed with similar regret and remorse on “Father’s House,” the equally sad song that follows.

While Mipso hold true to the usual bluegrass regimen — at least when it comes to the standard regalia of mandolin, guitar, violin and double bass — they make no pretense when it comes to summoning any prerequisite of revelry and abandon. The music is sincere and rich in sentiment, but the feelings spring from a certain edginess in the emotion, rather than simply their nimble picking or the plucking of their strings.

When, on “Stranger,” they sing “You’re gone and it’s going to stay that way,” the loneliness and sorrow is palpable. Granted, these downcast feelings aren’t exactly in sync with a title like Old Time Reverie, but honesty is an important asset. And in that regard, Mipso’s music comes across as wholly vital and unerringly effective. Three albums on, Mipso is a band to watch.