The Big Eyes Family Players, to put it bluntly, manage to make bluegrass fresh by using loops and a liberal dose of atmosphere on ?Donkey Songs.? They do it well, too. The opening number, ?Snowflake runt? is a summer day meltdown nearly obliterating the idea of a time signature with its shuffling layers; a perfect opener for a semi-morose tangle of strings, keys and other instrumentation. Throughout the recording, BEFP repeatedly tinker with rhythm, often underpinning their beautifully melancholic ballads with meandering percussive elements which lend themselves to something more akin to the avant garde than anything associated with traditional folk. However, they do their experimentation with one eye focused there while the other is fixated on melodic and more traditional concerns. Makes what I call 'finely cockeyed' music where walls melt away and time dissociates. Wonderful, really. 8/10 -- P. Somniferum (8 April, 2008)