Bluegrass review: Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper

Leavin' Town ****

Anyone who has seen him perform would agree that Michael Cleveland is one of the most exciting fiddle players in bluegrass. He has earned five top fiddler trophies and has pulled the bow for Rhonda Vincent and the Rage and Dale Ann Bradley's Coon Creek Girls.

"Leavin' Town" (Rounder) is the debut album from Michael Cleveland and Flamethrower. Cleveland, whose stage presence as a blind fiddler is as exciting and unpredictable as his innovative musicianship, plays with an abandon that occasionally borders on chaos, yet he always manages to stay within the boundaries of the tune. Keeping the music centered and dynamic is the job of the veteran Flamekeeper band, featuring Todd Rakestraw (guitar, lead vocals), Jesse Brock (mandolin), John Mark Batchelor (banjo), and Marshall Wilborn (bass).

Rakestraw, an early member of Alison Krauss' Union Station, is a wide-open bluegrass singer, whether spitting out the anger and disappointment of a breakup on "Sold Down the River," easing out sorrow on the ballad "My Blue Eyed Darling," reaffirming affection on Pete Wernick's "In My Mind to Ramble," or taking aim at the hypocrisy of "Sunday Morning Christian."

The band's instrumental brilliance is clear throughout. Especially luminous are Bill Monroe's classic "Jerusalem Ridge" and his less familiar "Northern White Clouds," and Brock's ironically titled "Kickin' Back."