If you were to walk into a crowded bar and loudly announce that NOFX were celebrating their 40th anniversary, chances are that more than a few people would get struck with a kind of existential ennui, their eyes drifting off into the middle distance as they ponder the cruel passage of time. In fact, this may be the same reaction NOFX had when they realized this milestone was approaching, as they’ve taken the opportunity to call it a day and hit that sweet retirement. Not ones to go out on a whimper, though, NOFX decided to tackle their farewell tour by hitting 40 cities and playing 40 songs per show.

When the internet became ubiquitous, and access to the entirety of pop music history was suddenly at everyone’s fingers, suddenly a whole generation of bands were armed with reference points that were heretofore only available to crate-digging record obsessives. Slamming two disparate sounds together, just to see what happened, became a thriving part of the music landscape. Certain genres would get a little more attention than others, depending on the time – dance-punk, New Wave indie twee, psych-electronica, just slapping a Bruce Springsteen filter onto any old genre, and other experiments all had their day in the sun in the first decade of the ‘00s. Nowadays, with this mixing and matching having effectively been gamified, it’s refreshing to run across a band that combines sounds in interesting ways.

In 2006, a few things were happening in the greater indie rock landscape, including the ever expanding tendrils from the past few years’ rediscovery of previously discarded genres like psychedelia, garage rock, and goth; the excitement of hundreds of bands scrambling to see where everything was going next; and the birth of two bands: the Growlers and the Coathangers. For the Growlers, surf-rock and an arid, dusty atmosphere led them to describe their sound as “beach goth”; as for the Coathangers, they embraced an increasingly hooky brand of punk, bolstered by an unfuckwithable swagger.

In 2016, the Comatose Brothers covered “Valerie,” a song that was famously covered by Brits Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, and originated by the Liverpudlian indie rock group the Zutons. Where the Comatose Brothers diverged from the established path is that they veered away from indie rock and R&B, lending their distinctly beautiful bluegrass take to a song that had more or less taken on a life of its own in the ‘00s. In a nutshell, this sort of sums up the experience of hearing the Brothers Comatose – they provide a distinctly modern feel to bluegrass, but not in the way that so many bands tried to do around a decade ago.The Comatose Brothers are revivalists in the same way as the Old Crow Medicine Show, honoring Americana’s past while also blazing a trail into the future. That bit of modern feel is hard to put one’s finger on, but what’s easy to catch is the sheer amount of energy they put into their performances. This is a five-piece that couldn’t be more in the pocket, more motivated to thrill, or more determined to make sure that they have fun delivering this pristine string music to you. Laying down those impeccable harmonies almost feels unfair to other bands.