Self-released

****1/2

An informed artist with a dedication and devotion to arcane grassicana, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, award-winning fiddle player and former Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway member, enters a new phase of her career as simply Bronwyn and with RATTLIN’ BONES, her third solo album. Bronwyn is the total package: she can write a hooky tune, rip through a blistering fiddle solo and sing the hell out of any song she likes. The bluegrass world still considers her an emerging artist, but this remarkable album should end that thought. Only the most talented artists can effectively tread between past and present, and at the same time, attempt to foresee the future. Consequently, one must credit Bronwyn with maintaining her reverence for the roots, while keeping her contemporary credence intact. While today’s populist precepts may account for modern bluegrass music’s progressive leanings, pushing those parameters is a risky proposition. Taking a vintage sound and making it conducive enough to generate popular appeal and bringing bluegrass to a level where it achieves wider recognition, takes an inordinate amount of skill, savvy, and dexterity. Bronwyn possesses all that and more.

Adding a layer of knowing glamour and panache to the sometimes-fusty world of bluegrass music, she is shamelessly trading in dynamism and power to the delight of a public that have lapped it up even as some of the purists sniffed. Unfettered by genre restrictions, this album showcases different sides of the talented young songwriter’s range, which runs from traditional bluegrass to newgrass to front porch Appalachia to Americana-flecked tunes. As an album, RATTLIN’ BONES manages to capture the feeling of live music with studio sound quality, thanks to co-producers Bronwyn and Brent Truitt. Bronwyn’s fiddle, of course, winds throughout, but it’s only sometimes front and centre. The skilled musicians’—Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton, Dennis Crouch, Frank Rische, Harry Clark, Jeff Pickler, Dominick Leslie, Miles Miller plus her touring band members—instrumental interplay makes every track sound spirited and celebratory in a contemporary context; the lively arrangements allowing each musician an opportunity to individually stand out. 

An extraordinarily complex record in terms of genre, emotion and sonics, the sprawling jams—ranging from the driving yet melodic End Of The Road to the jamgrass meltdown of Blink Of An Eye—offer warm reminders of Bronwyn’s free-form spirit. The bluegrass rambler The Ride gambols joyously yet with a reflective hint of weariness, while crystalline guitar lines weave under Bronwyn’s intimate vocals on the Alison Krauss-like romantic ballad Hold Me Down. With an arrangement that regales with a cascade of fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and impeccable harmonies, Virginia Gal is inevitably pure bluegrass at its best. Alongside these lyrically lighter tracks, Bronwyn can also be quite deep, as on Johnny Ray, which tackles the dark depths that can result from addiction and substance abuse. The instantly catchy singalong chorus is perfectly countered by Jerry Douglas’ darkly rhythmic Dobro and Bronwyn’s fiddle. Gallatin Road is lyrically on the mark, as she captures this area of East Nashville that I’m very familiar with. A jam-educated good-time Americana blend of country and bluegrass that harks back to 1970s Jerry Reed and the Outlaws, with Timbo joining in vocally adds up to a memorable track.

Like a gale force wind, Bronwyn lifts us off the ground, out of our complacency, and into a sonic stratosphere from which we’ll never want to come down. With a creative mindset firing on all cylinders, each of these songs is informed by an array of seminal influences. Her powerful vocals, vivid songwriting, inventive fiddle playing, and singable hooks are truly inspiring. Watch this talented young lady take the music world by storm.

bronwynfiddle.com

July 2026