Punch Brothers - The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers Punch Brothers

‘No band has expanded the reach of American roots and bluegrass quite like Punch Brothers have. Inviting new audiences to the music with their myriad influences, they’ve spent [two decades] ignoring the boundaries of genre and creating lush sound worlds. Long may they continue to tell their stories. - Songlines

The seventh album Punch Brothers - and its first comprising all instrumental tunes as well as its first with fiddle player Brittany Haas, who joined the quintet in 2023 - features eight new original compositions by the Grammy-winning band as well as three traditional songs they arranged. The album’s title is more than a play on words: without lyrics to guide the listener, these are stories, impressions, and emotions communicated entirely with strings through melody, harmony, rhythm, and a literary sense of musical structure. For a band known for pushing acoustic music into unexpected places, going fully instrumental may be the most adventurous move they have made yet. The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers is produced by the band and engineered by Joseph Lorge, who most recently received a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album/Non-Classical for his work on Pino Palladino and Blake Mills’ That Wasn’t a Dream.

Recorded at Guilford Sound Studio in Vermont last fall and winter, The Unsung Adventures of Punch Brothers is an album of music without words. Thile, who founded the band in 2006, says, “This music is the result of what feels to me like our deepest but also most joyful exploration of the American string band in the twenty years we’ve been making music together. Something about the dichotomy of all the water under the bridge plus a new, brilliant teammate in Brittany. We all felt like kids in a candy store … so many possibilities and so much energy with which to pursue them, except with the kind of collective discipline and clarity of intent that only decades of collaboration affords.”

Regarding the first track, ‘New Bike’, Thile says, “We discovered the first theme of ‘New Bike’ during one of the first writing sessions for Unsung Adventures and it seemed thesis-statement-y from the jump. It’s downright euphoric to play and reminds me of being allowed to ride my new Diamondback Topanga mountain bike to the library for the first time when I was ten years old. We get that much of a thrill out of it … and good Lord, when Britt takes off towards the end of the secondary gesture? WHEEEEEE!!!”

Punch Brothers, formed by Chris Thile in 2006, is known for pushing the boundaries of acoustic music. The band has garnered critical acclaim, including a Grammy for Best Folk Album for All Ashore (2018). The Washington Post applauded them for taking “bluegrass to its next evolutionary stage, drawing equal inspiration from the brain and the heart.”

Over the past two decades, Punch Brothers has become a pioneer in modern string music, with albums like Antifogmatic (2010), Who’s Feeling Young Now (2012), and The Phosphorescent Blues (2015) showcasing the group’s genre-defying sound. Rolling Stone praised their work as “wild virtuosity used for more than just virtuosity,” cementing their reputation as trailblazers in contemporary acoustic music. The band’s most recent album, Hell on Church Street (2021), is a reimagining of, and homage to, the late bluegrass great Tony Rice’s landmark solo album Church Street Blues.

Most recently, Punch Brothers have been focused on the band’s musical variety show, The Energy Curfew Music Hour. Season One is available on all podcast platforms, with season two exclusively out on Audible. Season 1 was nominated for a Webby Award in the Podcast: Features, Experimental & Innovation category; it also won Most Innovative Audio Experience, Best Live Podcast Recording, and Best Sound Design in the Listener’s Choice category of the 2025 Signal Awards.