Chatham County Line

Chatham County Line's 2003 debut is a bluegrass record, balancing tradition and innovation with subtlety. That's a tough thing to do with a music that's so dominated by "roots" ideology. On the prickly "Wichita Central," for example, the quartet sounds Appalachian-archaic, but it also sounds like four dudes who dig Neil Young, the Dead and Jeff Tweedy. So yeah, ditch that O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and get hip with this young outfit from North Carolina.