ON HIS SECOND solo outing David Grubbs cultivates all his regular cunning. Scaling back to some degree, his posturing as a musicians musician - with each new release - Grubbs still saturates his music with authoritative expression utilizing both instrument and lyric. The Thicket is his most "approachable" work yet, in the sense that he plays for you instead of trying to un-familiarize you. It's a perceivably instinctive work (resounding a convivial backwoods nature with the exertion of banjo, droning violins (Tony Conrad), trombone (Jeb Bishop) and trumpet). For this unique alliance Grubbs has with his muse - I am allured by. Less sparse than "Banana Cabbage, Potato Lettuce, Onion Orange" and less experimental than his works with GASTR DEL SOL with the noise bleeps, found sound scrape and cut and paste orchestral clippings et. al., The Thicket forages in the neo-folk fertile fields. One he helped create and one he resourcefully plans to maintain.