At E3 in the summer of 2018, the gameplay trailer for The Last of Us Part II was driven not by a booming orchestra but by the banjo and cello of a progressive string band from Boston. This episode traces Crooked Still from its formation in spring 2001, when New England Conservatory students Aoife O'Donovan and Corey DiMario met Berklee cellist Rushad Eggleston and MIT graduate student and banjo player Gregory Liszt, through the debut album Hop High in 2004 and the international breakout Shaken by a Low Sound in 2006.

The hosts explain how the band hacked the bluegrass formula by removing the mandolin and giving its percussive role to an aggressively chopped cello, then how they survived Eggleston's departure in November 2007 by adding cellist Tristan Clarridge and fiddler Brittany Haas from the same Darol Anger orbit. That wider lineup prod ...