Nickel Creek is an acoustic trio comprised of guitarist Sean Watkins, his sister, violinist Sara Watkins, and mandolinist Chris Thile. Songs their first album, 2000’s Nickel Creek, saw significant play on CMT. While my taste is mostly rock music, I must note that I am not above country music. Sure there is a lot of crap on country radio these days, but when I was growing up in the early 90s that was not the case. Actually none of that even matters because Nickel Creek really don’t even sound country, I just happened to discover them on Country Music Television. I got that first album after hearing a few singles and it was good, but there were quite a few bluegrass inspired instrumentals. All three members are incredibly gifted musicians, but some of those tracks weren’t really my style. On their sophomore album This Side the band really branched out and more or less left the bluegrass behind. There were still some traces here and there and that is fine. I can handle it in small doses. A cool thing to me about Nickel Creek is that all three members sing lead vocals on different songs and all three do it very well. I must say however that I am partial to Chris Thile’s powerful and simultaneously delicate voice. He handled most of the singing on their most recent album Why Should the Fire Die? Easily their best work, the songs on Fire deal largely with dysfunctional relationships and use a sharp narrative voice to tell the tales of love and loss. The strongest track on the album is easily “Nickel Creek - "Helena"
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