Antifogmatic

Despite its conventional string-band arrangement—guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, upright bass—Punch Brothers turn out bluegrass music so unconventional that it barely merits the genre tag: The group favors meandering arrangements that hew closer to jazz or classical. But while its previous album, Punch, took that…

Mandolin player and singer Chris Thile's band Punch Brothers may have a standard bluegrass lineup also including a guitar, banjo, fiddle, and bass, but if their music fits into the bluegrass category at all, it's only because of that instrumentation.

With Antifogmatic, the brothers have done a fine job of incorporating their most sophisticated aspirations into a more conventional album format.