Additional personnel: Malcolm Burn (various instruments); Jim Watts (guitar, E-bow, background vocals); Jason Hann (percussion).

The deluge of String Cheese Incident live albums makes a studio outing by the Colorado jam band seem like a rarity, when, in fact, the group regularly releases a disc of new songs every two or three years. 2005's ONE STEP CLOSER features the production work of Malcolm Burn (Daniel Lanois's protégé), and his warm, chiming vibe perfectly suits SCI. Here gentle organ and accordion textures envelop listeners, and the string-heavy instrumentation always serves the song itself rather than launching off into extended-solo territory.

Singer/songwriter Jim Lauderdale co-pens three tunes here, most notably the swaying "Big Compromise" (with guitarist/vocalist Billy Nershi), while Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter contributes to the "45th of November," a surging track that proves to be the album's highlight. Over the course of ONE STEP CLOSER, each member of the quintet writes (or co-writes) at least one tune in a wonderfully democratic fashion that embodies the spirit of SCI. Like Blues Traveler, the Incident saves most of its extended jams for concerts, keeping the focus sharp on this excellent and concise set of songs.