There’s a particular kind of grief that comes from watching something beautiful choose to end, and Why Should the Fire Die? is soaked in it.
Nickel Creek knew by 2005 that they were almost done. Chris Thile had Punch Brothers forming in the back of his mind. Sara and Sean Watkins were already sketching out solo trajectories. The band that had gone from Carlsbad, California bluegrass prodigies to genuine crossover stars on the strength of two records and a decade of relentless touring was quietly, gracefully beginning to bow out. What they left behind was their most mature, most conflicted, most quietly devastating album.
The Sessions
Producer Eric Valentine — who had worked with Queens of the Stone Age and Good Charlotte and seemed like an unlikely fit — turned out to be exactly the right choice. Valentine recorded the bulk of the album at Barefoot Recording in Hollywood, pushing the band toward sounds they hadn’t tried before. There are electric guitar tones on this record that would have been unthinkable on their self-titled debut. The production is fuller, sometimes almost lush, and yet it never buries what Nickel Creek actually is: three people who grew up playing acoustic instruments together since childhood, whose musical instincts are so deeply intertwined they finish each other’s phrases without thinking.
Thile’s mandolin playing here is extraordinary even by his standards. The runs on “Jealous of the Moon” have this controlled urgency to them, like he’s holding something back on purpose. Sara’s fiddle is sometimes mixed back in the room, almost like it’s coming from across the floor rather than in your ear, which gives certain tracks a spaciousness that suits the themes.
What the Album Actually Does
The songwriting took a harder turn. “When in Rome” is a full-throated rocker by any standard. “The Lighthouse’s Tale” from an earlier record was melancholy; this record is something past melancholy — it’s clear-eyed. “Jealous of the Moon,” written by Beth Nielsen Chapman, became a minor hit, and it’s easy to hear why: the production hooks are there, Sara’s voice is devastating, and the lyric earns its emotion honestly.
But the album’s real center is tracks like “Suitcase” and “Best of Luck” — smaller, sparer, with that quality of people saying goodbye without quite saying it.
Sean Watkins has always been undervalued in discussions of this band. His guitar work here — rhythm and lead both — is unfussy and exactly right in every instance. He plays like someone who is completely uninterested in being noticed, which is its own kind of mastery.
The closing track, “Eveline,” based on the James Joyce short story from Dubliners, is the kind of move that tells you exactly who these three people are: literary, technically capable of almost anything, and choosing restraint. It ends the album not with a bang but with a girl standing at the edge of a dock, unable to move.
They went on hiatus after this tour. Then came back for A Dotted Line in 2014, briefly and beautifully. But this is the record where you can hear them knowing.
Put it on after the house is quiet. Sit with the second half in particular.