I've recently had the great pleasure of discovering a musical group called Nickle Creek. They were actually recommended to me by my brother-in-law and sister-in-law in Houston who saw the group perform last year at the Houston Rodeo. I checked out the group's latest CD from the library the other day and have been in awe ever since. This is one of those rare albums that I liked on the first listen and subsequent listens just compounds the first impression. Nickle Creek is a young bluegrass group very much in the mold of Alison Krauss and Union Station. I was shocked by how much the female singer sounds like Alison Krauss, and then I saw that Krauss is a producer on the album. But it is actually the male singer who dominates most of the recordings. I'm not sure if they write their own songs or not (I'll have to check), but they certainly have the first two parts of the musical trifecta down - that being the singing and playing their own instruments well. I was completely sold on the album after listening to just the first three cuts. The first is the Grammy nominated instrumental that takes your breath away using just a mandolin, guitar and violin. The first song is the wonderfully strange "Spit on a Stranger." I would never have thought that a song with that title could sound so beautiful. Seems more appropriate for a punk song. The third cut is just great songwriting, plain and simple.

It's not often that I find a new group that wins me over so completely right away. One other example would be the Foo Fighters (although they have been around a while but I just got one of their cds last year). But I have been disappointed by other groups that have been hyped up after sampling their music -- Blink 182, Coldplay are just two examples.