Since 1999, Mark Erelli has released five albums, and with each, he's strengthened his songwriting, refined his sound, earned new fans, and garnered ever more glowing reviews.  It's an ongoing evolution appropriate for Erelli, most likely the only working singer/songwriter who also holds a master’s degree in Evolutionary Biology.

A master musician who played 11 instruments on his latest release, "Hope and Other Casualties" (2006), and who, according to frequent collaborator and road companion Kris Delmhorst, 'brings three or four new instruments he's mastered since the last time" each time they tour together, Erelli blends bluegrass, gospel, country, blues, western swing, pop, rock and protest into his "folk" sound.

On "Hope," both his most personal and political album to date, Erelli tackles love and loss, alternately examining life after 9/11 and crooning about getting snowed in with the one you love.  What he fails to do is treat issues superficially — he thinks his audience deserves better than that. 

"I feel a lot of dumbing-down in American culture," he told Scott Alarik of the Boston Globe, "and I think people rise to your expectations of them.  If you don’t expect them to get it, they won't.  I just decided, look, I'm in this for the long haul; I'm trying to have an honest-to-goodness relationship with my audience.  And part of what’s interesting and fulfilling about a relationship is that we challenge each other.  The funny thing is, that seems to be just what my audience wants me to do."

Music critics feel the same way:  the UK's Fish Records called "Hope" a "superb collection and easily one of the finest and most rewarding albums of recent years," adding, "anyone with any interest in folk singer/songwriters will find a huge amount to enjoy here." No Depression magazine declared, "Tasteful, intelligent and sensitive, Erelli’s songwriting is as unpredictable as a bead of mercury; once you think you have it, it reassembles into something else on the next track."

Eric R. Danton of the Hartford Courant added a longer view to the chorus of praise:  "Listening to [Erelli’s] evolution as a songwriter has been one of the most rewarding experiences a folk-music fan could have."