A Dotted Line

The first Nickel Creek album since the 2007 Farewell (For Now) Tour came out on Nonesuch on 1 April 2014, in the trio's 25th anniversary year, and a tour was set to start that month. Eric Valentine produced, engineered, mixed and mastered it. The first singles were Destination and Love of Mine, and there are two covers, Mother Mother's Hayloft, credited to Ryan Guldemond, and Sam Phillips's Where Is Love Now. Sean Watkins wrote 21st of May and Thile wrote Elsie.

It debuted at 7 on the Billboard 200 with 27,000 copies in its first week, and had sold 47,000 in the US by May 2014. It also reached number one on the bluegrass and folk charts. Metacritic scored it 82, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that if there was not much spark, there was a surplus of warmth. Paste said the band had grown without losing its palpable joy, and the Boston Globe called it a vibrant reminder of their youthful promise. The A.V. Club, grading it B+, thought it superb in execution but light on surprises.