Today marks the release of A Dotted Line, the new album from the Grammy Award–winning, multi-platinum selling trio Nickel Creek—Chris Thile (mandolin/vocals), Sara Watkins (fiddle/vocals), and Sean Watkins (guitar/vocals)—on CD and digitally, with the vinyl to follow on April 29. The band officially reunites for the first time since its 2007 self-described “indefinite hiatus” for the Eric Valentine–produced new album and a US tour, which kicks off April 16 and includes shows in New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles, and more.

To celebrate the release of the new album, the band will perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on NBC this Wednesday night, April 2. The band will also be guests on the beloved public radio program A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor broadcast live from The Town Hall in New York City this Saturday, April 5.

To pick up a copy of A Dotted Line, head to iTunes or the Nonesuch Store, where CD and vinyl orders include a download of the complete album at checkout.

Nickel Creek was featured in the New York Times this past Sunday, in which Times music critic Nate Chinen wrote: "The most striking feature about A Dotted Line is the sheer strength of the singing, and the frequency with which it takes flight in three-part harmony ... There’s also a high level of songcraft on the album, though it’s scrupulously subtle, in the realm of elegant melodic contour and deft harmonic movement."

NPR, which selected A Dotted Line for its First Listen series last week, said of the album: "It's tight, it's masterful; it's totally grown-up. But it's also a blast." 

USA Today gives the album three-and-a-half out of four stars, saying: "With the best reunions, like this trio's first album in nine years, their efforts apart make them better together. Chris Thile and siblings Sean and Sara Watkins expertly stretch pop parameters with imaginative arrangements."

Following their hiatus, "like old friends who fall right back into conversation, Nickel Creek picks up the thread in glorious fashion on A Dotted Line," exclaims the Boston Globe's Sarah Rodman.

"The time away has done the California-spawned group good, as the conversation is familiar—intricate instrumental phrasing, pristine harmonies," says Rodman, "but also full of fresh energy that lends everything from the buoyant gospel bluegrass of '21st of May' to the joyously bleary 'Rest of My Life' an air of excitement."

She concludes: "Celebrating the band’s 25th anniversary, A Dotted Line is a vibrant reminder of Nickel Creek’s youthful promise and proof that it has plenty left to say."

Read the complete review at bostonglobe.com.

In the recent boom of Americana music, "no one has topped Nickel Creek’s knack for blending homespun music and virtuoso chops," says the Boston Herald's Jed Gottlieb. "The trio sounds tighter than ever, even on more experimental songs ... Just right for the return of a band too long gone."

In the UK, the album earns four-and-a-half stars from the Sun. "When music historians come to reflect on our current obsession with roots music, they will surely cite Nickel Creek as one of the key outfits that fuelled the fire," says the paper, which calls the new album "a wonderful concoction of harmonies, fiddle, mandolin and acoustic guitar." The Evening Standard, which gives the album four stars, calls it "Fearless and excellent."

BBC Radio 2's Bob Harris sums it up this way: "Nickel Creek are back together; all is well with the world."

"Nine years, much like tomorrow, is such a long time, but it’s exactly what was necessary for Nickel Creek to become the project it has become with A Dotted Line," writes Pop Matters reviewer Brice Ezell. "The teenage musicians responsible for 'A Lighthouse’s Tale' and 'When You Come Back Down' have grown up into songwriters with a knowledge of when to let the music breathe. Patience is one of the defining qualities of this LP."

Ezell goes on to say: "The vocal harmonies are, as ever, immaculate, but A Dotted Line reveals an even richer rapport amongst the three, a kind of rapport one might predict can only come with age."

He concludes: "For that reason, it becomes obvious that nine years wasn’t too long a wait given that the result was this, an album that confirms these musicians have an interplay that should be the envy of anyone in their class—which is, of course, but a few. A Dotted Line is a work of supreme songcraft; one might call it a 'return to form,' but from the sound of it, the form was never gone in the first place."

Read the complete review at popmatters.com.