With fiddler Brittany Haas making her studio debut with Punch Brothers, the band used the opportunity to try something else new—a wholly instrumental LP. 

The resulting release, The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers, proves there’s reward in the risk as the five-piece string band serves up a mix of genre-defying music that sounds Punchy despite missing a key element—Chris Thile’s voice—and being unlike any of the group’s previous releases. 

Unsung Adventures finds the band, which also includes bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Chris Eldridge and banjoist Noam Pikelny, creating a glistening mix of bluegrass and classical music interspersed with their penchant for esoteric, jazz-infused expressions. 

There’s more of the former, on such tracks as “New Bike” and “Descend, O Diamondback!,” while “Saturn: Pogo Ball of the Gods” and “Song of the Water Kelpie (unsung)” are vehicles the Punch Brothers use to display their more-challenging approach to music-making. 

Unsung Adventures is thus the same and quite different at the same time. Think of it as a comfy, well-worn pair of sonic shoes outfitted with new soles to take listeners to novel places.