The third album from Milwaukee’s .357 String Band continues the group’s fearless and fierce refashioning of un-amped acoustic Americana/alt country, plumbing further depths of the Saturday-night rowdy/Sunday-morning righteous dichotomy. There’s a reason they call this music streetgrass.

Acts such as Bad Livers and The Meat Purveyors have taken bluegrass to punky places, too, but the .357 boys maintain a palpable edge by their understanding of the dark regret behind everything from heartbreak to murder. Their trick isn’t only in the heart-racing tempos inherent to their genre; there's more lowdown anger than the high lonesomeness others might crib from their Bill Monroe records. And there's just enough aural weirdness and tempering of the venom to keep Lightning From the North engaging through 14 songs.