From the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops comes an album that is part backyard, boot-stomping goodness and part soulful ballad power, but all pure string, strong sound and a splash of sass. The band’s old-timey influence shines through in the banjo, jug and bones, but the album is much more than homage to a time past. It’s a reawakening of an old sound with new, vibrant life that the Drops have reinvented.

The album “Leaving Eden” kicks off with a delightfully intoxicating fiddle melody, supported by the banjo’s sturdy strums on the song “Riro’s House.” And then dances down into the slower-paced “Kerr’s Negro Jig,” which features one of the Drops’ newest members, Leyla McCalla at the forefront on the cello, plucking a plodding melody on the big humble instrument.

McCalla, as well as multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins and beatboxer extraordinaire Adam Matta, joined the Drops after one of the founding members, Justin Robinson, amicably left the group in early 2011. Although Robinson’s departure from the band was disappointing for fans, the new additions are tremendous and truly opened up the creativity door, adding blissful new layers of instrumental depth.

“The Chocolate Drops continue to utilize…traditional instrumentation, which makes the addition of cello and a beat boxer seem a bit odd – but it is a risk that pays off.  The deep mourn of McCalla’s cello lends a sense of gravity to the title track, a song about jobs leaving a North Carolina mill town, while Matta’s percussive sounds and thumping beats provide added texture to Giddens’ spunky ‘Country Girl.’  Jenkins, who started out busking in Brooklyn, is also a welcomed addition, be it adding his vocals to the a cappela ‘Read ‘Em John,’ or showing off his instrumental prowess on ‘Mahalla,'” said Glide Magazine’s Sheryl Hunter.

When the Chocolate Drops played at UNCW in the fall, they showcased some of their new material from “Eden,” and hearing it on the recording was almost as good as hearing it live. The particularly brilliant performance on the album undeniably is founding member Rhiannon Giddens’ stunning vocals. Her soaring voice leaves you hanging on her every pitch-perfect note. She brings a savory sass to a remake of Ethel Water’s bluesy tribute to being a strong, single lady on “No Man’s Mama.”

This album also had very personal meaning for the founding members of the Drops. When they first formed, they were greatly inspired and influenced by old-time African-American fiddler Joe Thompson, who taught them the ways of North Carolina’s traditional Piedmont music firsthand. At the age of 93, Thompson passed away a week before “Eden” was released. His legacy and the essence of African American folk music in the South, however, live on in this homage of an album.

“Dispelling the myth that black music began with the blues, the Chocolate Drops have reclaimed a swathe of the musical styles that enlivened the South a hundred years ago… There’s artful variety; the band may have a particular approach, but they’re no purists. Ragtime, jug band novelties, calypso and even folk-rock jostle among the hoedowns and jigs,” said BBC’s Ninian Dunnett.