If the music industry relied on traditional resumes in order to sign bands, the members of Punch Brothers would have one of the most impressive resumes in the biz, and thereby no problem snagging that lucrative six-album deal.

Not only are they fronted by former Nickel Creek mandolin player Chris Thile, but the remaining members of the band - Gabe Witcher, Noam Pikelny, Chris Eldridge, and Paul Kowert - have worked and/or studied with everyone from Edgar Meyer and Randy Newman to The Infamous Stringdusters, Bela Fleck, and Beck - and have even contributed music to films like Toy Story, which is currently enjoying animated revival of sorts in theaters.

But now, it's all about the Brothers - currently in the middle of their fall tour, with additional dates booked all the way through March 2010 - and their latest album, Punch, which they released on Nonesuch Records and which includes Thile's musical suite "The Blind Leaving the Blind," which he penned about the emotions surrounding the difficult divorce he went through at the age of 26.

"I trusted people and I thought people would always look out for me as long as I didn't go around screwing things up," Thile explains, "to run into a relationship that wasn't honest led to disillusionment with my upbringing as well as my marriage; I just wasn't prepared for the fact that the world doesn't always have your best interests at heart. But ultimately, the album isn't really about how betrayed I felt, but the effect that that betrayal had on my worldview."

Listeners new to Punch Brothers probably first heard about Thile either through his Nickel Creek work or via his 2006 solo album, which featured his covers of tunes by The White Stripes and The Strokes; now, Thile and his bandmates have taken on a different twist to their sound, which blends pop into bluegrass in an intriguingly cryptic fashion.

Even the band's name has a certain mystique; according to Thile, you'll have to read through the Mark Twain short story "Punch, Brothers, Punch!" to understand its origins.

The album itself is an interesting balance of improv jams and structure, and was recorded at Legacy Studios in New York, where Thile and the band placed three mics up in the rafters of a scoring studio with a 35-foot-high ceiling to allow the sound to interact with the acoustics of the room itself. The highlight, of course, is that aforementioned musical suite, which extends the length of the traditional album track and winds around a range of musical textures and evokes everything from mournfulness to flashes of optimism.

But the interesting question remains - how did a bunch of musically-skilled 20-30 somethings decide to focus on modernizing this old-school form of music, as opposed to forming yet another typical indie-rock band, which Thile says had crossed his mind, even though it seemed too obvious - and unchallenging - a choice?

"Ever since I was really little, instruments like mandolin, banjo, guitar, violin, and bass are what I identified with," Thile explains, "these are very agreeable instruments, so it seems like there are limitless possibilities for them."