Punch Brothers’ T Bone Burnett–produced new album, The Phosphorescent Blues, is out now on CD and digitally. After working with Burnett numerous times—most recently on the soundtrack for the Joel and Ethan Coen film Inside Llewyn Davis and the related Town Hall/Showtime concert Another Day, Another Time—Punch Brothers decided to join forces with the multiple Grammy Award–winning producer for their new record. Last summer, the band and Burnett spent a month at Hollywood’s Ocean Way Recording laying down the songs that guitarist Chris Eldridge, bassist Paul Kowert, banjo player Noam Pikelny, mandolinist and lead singer Chris Thile, and fiddler Gabe Witcher had written during several writing “retreats” last winter and spring.

The Phosphorescent Blues is available now at iTunes, Amazon, and in the Punch Brothers shop and Nonesuch Store, where orders included a download of the complete album at checkout. The vinyl edition, due February 24, is available to pre-order now. Every ticket purchased to Punch Brothers' upcoming tour also includes a digital download of the new album; for details, visit punchbrothers.com.

Punch Brothers were featured on NPR's Morning Edition today. Band mates Chris Thile and Gabe Witcher spoke with NPR's Vince Pearson about the new album, which "shows off their eclectic sound," says the show. "Punch Brothers sing of distraction and isolation in the digital age on their new album The Phosphorescent Blues," says Pearson. "While the group may look like a typical bluegrass band, the sound is all their own." You can hear the piece at npr.org.

The band and the new album are the subject of a feature in the Chicago Tribune. "From the start, mandolinist Thile and his figurative brothers' concept included Punch Brothers going beyond a standard 'newgrass' hallmark of bluegrass instruments applied to non-bluegrass music and, as much as possible, breaking free of all genres," writes David Royko. "Each of the band's releases has displayed a different facet of the band's kaleidoscopic character, from the tightly composed classical abstraction of Thile's 40-minute The Blind Leaving the Blind to Radiohead's 'Kid A' and Tex Ritter's 'Rye Whiskey,' while maintaining a distinctive sound. The Phosphorescent Blues pulls it all together." Subscribers can read the article at chicagotribune.com.

"The album mixes chamber-music intricacy, improvisational flash, lump-in-throat balladry, and a puckish Debussy cover," writes the Boston Globe's Steve Smith; "T Bone Burnett’s canny production simultaneously captures the band’s woodsy caress and enhances its emotional impact." The Boston Herald says "tremendous warmth and beauty shine through" on the new album.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says: "Always innovative, the Punch Brothers have become more ambitious on their fascinating fourth album, The Phosphorescent Blues," featuring "some choral harmonies that are somewhere between the Beach Boys and heaven."

"Like every Punch Brothers album, The Phosphorescent Blues is defined by technical chops," says Paste magazine's Ryan Reed. "But its lyrical focus offers a vibrant edge over its predecessors. Thile’s words are both deeply sad and quietly hopeful, meditating on the way pieces of vibrating plastic drive us both together and apart."

Punch Brothers perform "sophisticated music that some might call bluegrass—though it borders on jazz and much more—but sounds about as modern as contemporary music can get," says the Yahoo! Music album review on Rolling Stone. "Punch Brothers are astoundingly skilled, non-show-offy, and pretty much pushing at the vanguard of really great music you need to listen to right now. This record would be a great place to start."

The new album earns a perfect five stars in the Irish Times. "Listening to the Punch Brothers is an exercise in wonder," writes Irish Times music critic Joe Breen. "How do they do that? Where did that come from? What’s that reference? Is that Debussy? Is that The Beach Boys? Is that bluegrass, blues, jazz, classical, rock? Who cares because that tune’s just beautiful . . . and the playing and harmonies are breathtaking." Breen concludes, simply: "Enjoy." Read the complete five-star review at irishtimes.com.

The Herald Scotland, reviewing the new album, calls it "a quite masterly collection from a quintet of virtuosi, produced by a man whose name—T Bone Burnett—has become a guarantee of quality." Reviewer Keith Bruce says the album track "I Blew It Off' is his "favourite new song of the year so far" and concludes: "The Phosphorescent Blues deserves to be filed next to the best work of The Beach Boys, Big Star and Richard Thompson. It's that good." Read more at heraldscotland.com.

The new album earns four stars from musicOMH. "Their one consistent aim, from the four part suite The Blind Leaving the Blind right through to this new album has been to demonstrate a wide spectrum of possibility for a purely acoustic unit," writes OMH reviewer Daniel Paton. "The Phosphorescent Blues unashamedly reaches out with music that not only dazzles with its fluency but also engages on melodic, harmonic and rhythmic levels." He concludes: "The Phosphorescent Blues is an album filled with disarming, beautiful moments."

The new album is "triumphant," raves the CBC. "Punch Brothers are an amazing, unlikely thing," continues CBC reviewer Brad Frenette. "Five brilliant, genre-bending musicians, a baroque bluegrass outfit, an Appalachian classical ensemble, a mix of moonshine and jazz and genius, a bridge between technicality and heart."

Punch Brothers made a brief tour of Ireland and the United Kingdom over the past few days, performing music from the new album. The Herald Scotland, reviewing the band's Celtic Connections performance at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall over the weekend, gives the show a perfect five stars. "Are Punch Brothers the best band on the planet? They would surely have to be contenders," writes the Herald's Rob Adams in his review. "Within a ten minute period during this superlative demonstration of individual and collective musicianship, you might have heard the most sophisticated of vocal harmonies and instrumental arrangements, tempo shifts reminiscent of Stravinsky, a section from a Debussy suite, and melodic hooks that any pop songwriter would covet, and yet you're never far away from a reminder that this, were its components of such a mind, could be a straightforward, if ridiculously accomplished, bluegrass band." Read the full concert review at heraldscotland.com.

The Evening Standard gives four stars to Punch Brothers' recent performance at Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, saying they "have made a major creative leap on their new album, The Phosphorescent Blues ... Punch Brothers sounded as sharp as they looked."

Punch Brothers' North American tour begins with three shows at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, in late February. To pick up tickets for the tour, which include a download of the new album, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.