Yonder Mountain String Band, "Yonder Mountain String Band" (Vanguard, 2006)

When your favorite band makes the leap from releasing its own albums to signing with a well-known label, the reaction often is along the lines of: Uh-oh!

Record companies have a tendency of steering artists in directions that just might result in more sales, a development that sometimes serves to confuse and disappoints fans who have been there from the beginning.

Fans of the bluegrass-oriented jamband the Yonder Mountain String Band may have shaken their heads when they learned the quartet had signed with Vanguard Records, and that the debut for the label would feature percussion along with the strings. After all, that's not what they were used to hearing on the albums the band has been releasing on its own Frog Pad Records since 1999.

But there's no need to worry. Besides incorporating a fuller sound, the band hasn't done much to compromise its rootsy approach to playing on "The Yonder Mountain String Band," the new CD that hit the stores yesterday.

Helping shape the slightly altered approach are producer Tom Rothrock, who has worked with such well-established rock acts as the Foo Fighters and Beck (not Jeff), and drummer Pete Thomas, from Elvis Costello's band. Their presence doesn't transform the Yonder Mountain String Band so much as helping realize new possibilities.

"For me, it was a very necessary step that the band had to take, just because we've always been about letting ourselves experiment to the full width of the spectrum," mandolin player Jeff Austin is quoted as saying in the Vanguard biography of the band. "It was a part of us that was just dying to come out."

The start of the album-opening "Sidewalk Stars" sounds more like something from space than from the mountains, nearly a minute of ambient sounds building toward the song proper. But then the proceedings break into familiar territory: the syncopated banjo, bass, guitar and mandolin combining with vocal harmonies telling a bittersweet love story ("I'm asking you to laugh/But after all, you love a tragedy").

The next trio of songs - "I Aint' Been Myself in Years," "How 'Bout You?" (released as a single) and "Angel" - also are very close to the sound you'd expect from a bluegrass band, with the last of those tunes developing into a very spirited jam.

"That's a song where we draw from personal influences that bridge - for us - our love of heavier rock music, with lyrical imagery that's clearly traditional," bassist Ben Kaufmann says. "There's a fiddle in the solo section (courtesy of onetime David Grisman sideman Darol Anger), but it's clearly channeling the spirits of the rock guitar gods."

"Fastball" follows, a brief instrumental with a title that suits it well: the type of fast-tempo playing that really gets an audience on its feet. The snippet sets the tone for "East Nashville Easter," a rousing tune with lyrics in which the protagonist vows to pull himself up from the situation in which he finds himself.

"Just the Same," a solo composition by banjo player Dave Johnston, is delivered in a manner similar to a few of the tunes performed by the '60s band Kaleidoscope, which dabbled in just about every genre known at the time. "Classic Situation" brings the drums back in an upbeat song featuring some impressive acoustic guitar picking by Adam Ajala. Among the remaining songs, "Night Out" and "Troubled Mind" incorporate relatively straightforward bluegrass elements, while the instrumental "Midwest Gospel Radio" fills Rothrock's request for the band to play a spiritual number.

"Wind's On Fire" wraps up the album on a somber note, with the melancholy tones of Ajala's slide guitar emphasizing a sobering lyrical image: "Look at the size of your soul/Hang that old hanging judge/The highest tree, it ain't enough/Keep on tearing your soul apart/Look at the size of the world." Then again, the final message brings some optimism: "Any old light that shine to me/Let a little light in your heart."

The same can be said for Yonder Mountain String Band fans who might be wary of the sound of the new album. It's different, but not so much to detract from enjoying the talents of your favorite band.