Nickel Creek's debut album of the same name was pretty good so when "This Side" came out I had hopes it would be a good follow up. I was wrong, if you expect this album to be anything like the modern Bluegrass of the first album don't bother coming here. I liked many of the songs on the first CD but it seems like all of the selections here are much more Pop flavored, little or no tradition to them (the video I saw on TV was too weird to believe). Any of the group members can do much better than the work they display here, Sean Watkins is a good instrumentalist and Sara Watkins can really sing, but they left that behind on this one. Maybe a third album, if there is one, will be better.