Carolina Chocolate Drops’ new album, Leaving Eden, is out today. Rolling Stone, in a four-star review, says that the album “grows handsome fruit from a nation's tangled roots,” calling the record “a lesson in 21st-century American folk.” The  Los Angeles Times notes that “band spends much of this very fresh-sounding album aligning itself with traditional values.” USA Today notes that the group “may take their cues from 1920s string- and jug-band music, but they're simply a great band.”

Carolina Chocolate Drops' new album, Leaving Eden, is due out next week on CD with vinyl to follow on March 20. Catch a sneak peek in a new video preview featuring the band's take on the Hazel Dickens tune "Pretty Bird" here. In the UK, the Independent on Sunday gives the album four stars. The band appeared on BBC Radio 6 Music's The Huey Show, discussing and performing songs from the new album, and are featured in The Arts Desk and the Guardian, which describes their sound as "a form of old-time jug band blues played with contemporary R&B attitude."

Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers, and The Low Anthem have joined celebrated Irish band The Chieftains to mark that group's 50th anniversary with a new album, Voice of Ages. The album, produced by T Bone Burnett, finds The Chieftains performing with these three Nonesuch artists as well as Bon Iver, The Civil Wars, The Decemberists, and others. The New York Times calls it "an album of collaborations with some of the hottest young folk, country, bluegrass, rockabilly and indie-rock talents on both sides of the Atlantic." The Low Anthem will be The Chieftains' special guests on stage at Carnegie Hall on St. Patrick's Day.

Carolina Chocolate Drops, whose new album, Leaving Eden, is due out February 28, are touring the US and have just added a number of new tour dates to their schedule this spring, including several headlining shows in the Midwest and down South, as well as five shows supporting the Dave Matthews Band in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Massachusetts. Ticket presales are available to DMB fans starting this morning.

Carolina Chocolate Drops' song "Country Girl," off their forthcoming album, Leaving Eden, has been named Song of the Day by NPR; an instant download of the track is included with album pre-orders. The band is currently touring the US. Listen to their recent appearance on WTJU in Charlottesville here. The Schenectady Daily Gazette, reviewing a recent show, says: "The Carolina Chocolate Drops are highly skilled musicians, but they’re also a lot of fun, with a gift for showmanship." The Independent Weekly in Durham concurs, saying the band has been "wowing audiences with their roots music chops and pure showmanship." Highlights from the band's recent set at Celtic Connections can be heard on BBC Radio 2.

Carolina Chocolate Drops are back in the US after a week in the UK, which saw four-star reviews from the Guardian and Times of London, to launch a months-long US tour in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, tonight. The tour will take the band up and down the East Coast and to the Midwest then out West before they head back east to play the New Orleans Jazz Fest in April. The band's new album, Leaving Eden, is due out February 28. Check out a preview video here, featuring the album's opening track, "Riro's House."

Carolina Chocolate Drops were featured on CNN Newsroom, discussing their music and its roots with anchor Brooke Baldwin. Watch it here. The band performed at Celtic Connections in Glasgow with support from Punch Brothers. The bands "played with the kind of hard-won technique that leaves you high on life," raves The Scotsman in a five-star review. The Herald Scotland calls the Chocolate Drops "riotously good fun" and "a real treat"; they "set the house alight." The band launches its US tour on Thursday. Chocolate Drops and Kronos Quartet can be heard on Chimes of Freedom, a new album of songs of Bob Dylan benefiting Amnesty International.

Carolina Chocolate Drops and Punch Brothers are in the UK this week, set to share a bill at Celtic Connections in Glasgow on Friday. Before then, Punch Brothers have been performing with Amos Lee and headline their own show at Bush Hall in London. Carolina Chocolate Drops have been making the rounds at the BBC, performing songs from their forthcoming album, Leaving Eden, on BBC Radio 3's In Tune and talking with Radio 4's Front Row about reclaiming the black string-band tradition.

Carolina Chocolate Drops follow up their critically lauded label debut—2010’s Grammy Award–winning Genuine Negro Jig—with Leaving Eden, due February 28 on Nonesuch Records. The group returns with a record of original compositions, covers, and traditional songs produced by Buddy Miller (Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant, Patty Griffin, Solomon Burke). The album is available for pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store, where a download of the track “Country Girl” is included and the first 300 CDs will be signed by the band.

The line-up for the 2012 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has been announced, and among the artists performing at next year's Jazz Fest are three performers familiar to readers of the Nonesuch Journal: Carolina Chocolate Drops, Cheikh Lô, and New Orleans' own Allen Toussaint. All three are performing during the festival's opening weekend, April 27–29, 2012, at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are featured on the new documentary Give Me the Banjo, which premiered on PBS on Friday night and is now available online. Narrated by Steve Martin, Give Me the Banjo is a musical odyssey through 300 years of American history and culture by way of the banjo. Watch Carolina Chocolate Drops member Rhiannon Giddens perform a song from the film here. On a very different note, the band has launched a cookie recipe contest with proceeds from sales of the winning cookies donated to the Food Bank of North Carolina.

Carolina Chocolate Drops give the world premiere of Keep a Song in Your Soul, a special program celebrating the black roots of vaudeville, at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, tonight with additional performances through the weekend. The group will be joined by jazz tap virtuoso Reggio "The Hoofer" McLaughlin and ragtime piano ace Reginald Robinson, all of whom will participate in a Q&A after each show. Watch a preview video and a performance on Chicago's ABC7 here.