Cricket Tell the Weather Bring Their Imaginative, Original Bluegrass-Inspired Sounds to the Tri-State Area

If you’re up for a fancy, sit-down night of newgrass and bluegrass, Cricket Tell the Weather are playing the third stage at the Rockwood at 8:30 PM on August 14. Cover is $10 and there’s that $10 drink minimum too. Much as it might seem incongruous not to be up on your feet dancing to this high-energy, original band, if you’re into hot picking, watching their fast fingers fly in this intimate space gives you a chance to figure out how they do it.

Their album – with production help from Lake Street Dive‘s fantastic bass player, Bridget Kearney – is streaming at Bandcamp. The opening track, Remington, looks back to hard times in firearms manufacturing in late 19th century Connecticut, singer Andrea Asprelli’s astringent fiddle sailing over the intricate web of Doug Goldstein’s banjo, Jason Borisoff’s guitar, Hans Bilger’s bass and Dan Tressler’s mandolin. Embers kicks off with an insistent guitar intro over an ominous bass drone: it’s a stark elegy for Borisoff’s mom, “Embers from afar, where the stars used to be,” as he broodingly asserts.

With its fire-and-brimstone imagery, four-part harmonies and banjo drive, Who’s that Knockin’ at My Door? is a swinging, retro Bill Monroe-style number. Likewise, the band-on-the-road tale Call You Home, sung by Asprelli, has jaunty solos around the horn. They bring the lights down for a glimmering, slow fingerpicked ballad, Let It Pass, looking back to 70s British hippie folk but without the cliches.

Rocky Mountain Skies is a triumphantly soaring salute to Asprelli’s native Colorado – her down-to-earth, unaffected vocal delivery is refreshing, and both Jeff Picker’s bass solo and Goldstein’s banjo solo will give you chills. So Fast So Long is a brisk, pouncing, catchy Britrock-tinged shuffle disguised as newgrass.”This town’s got eyes as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge,” Asprelli intones on the similarly edgy No Big City, with its blend of newgrass and darkly rustic Appalachian flavor. The album’s last song, Salt and Bones, has an unexpectedly funky rhythm and a pensive ambience that brings to mind Jenny Scheinman‘s adventures in Americana songcraft.

Since recording this, there’ve been some changes in the band, Jeff Picker taking over on guitar and Sam Weber replacing Bilger on bass. For Long Island and New Jersey bluegrass fans – or for anybody who might be up for a summer daytrip – the band are at the Long Island Bluegrass Festival at Tanner Park in Copiague the following day, August 15 and then at Parker Press Park, 401 Rahway Ave. in Woodbridge, New Jersey at 6 PM on the 16th.

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