The Greencards

There’s a genre of music in Nashville roughly analogous to the Island of Misfit Toys — bands that don’t quite fit any satellite radio category. The Greencards (not to be confused with Cincinnati garage rockers the Greenhornes or with our own local reggae favorites Green Card) are an imported trio: Australians Carol Young (vocals) and Kym Warner (mandolin) and English fiddler Eamon McLoughlin. Their makeup suggests Nickel Creek, but they’re more firmly rooted in American country, closer to Alison Krauss and Union Station or the acoustic edges of Patty Loveless. No lesser authority than The Austin Statesman ranked the Greencards’ latest, Weather and Water, among its Top 10 Albums of 2005, and it took that town’s local heroes Spoon and James McMurtry to keep the band out of the top spot.