Mainline is the third full-length studio album by Toronto bluegrass/folk band, The Barrel Boys. Produced by Canadian mandolin icon and decorated engineer/producer Andrew Collins, the album is jam-packed with new original material penned by each of the band’s five members. With this project, the band digs deeper into the sounds of traditional bluegrass, classic country, old-time, folk, and new acoustic music, making Mainline their most varied and engaging release to date. Over the course of the album, The Barrel Boys explore classic tropes of bluegrass (including trains, heartbreak, mining, and murder) while grounding those themes in a distinctly Canadian context and bringing their own experiences into the stories.Mainline is the third full-length studio album by Toronto bluegrass/folk band, The Barrel Boys. Produced by Canadian mandolin icon and decorated engineer/producer Andrew Collins, the album is jam-packed with new original material penned by each of the band’s five members. With this project, the band digs deeper into the sounds of traditional bluegrass, classic country, old-time, folk, and new acoustic music, making Mainline their most varied and engaging release to date. Over the course of the album, The Barrel Boys explore classic tropes of bluegrass (including trains, heartbreak, mining, and murder) while grounding those themes in a distinctly Canadian context and bringing their own experiences into the stories.

This album was born back in the days of our residency at the Cloak & Dagger. Every Tuesday, usually some time during the second set, we would start calling some of our favourite songs from the rich country-gospel tradition, memorably recorded by the likes of Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and Hank Williams. We started calling this portion of the set 'Gospel Hour,' and when we got the opportunity to record a few tunes live off the floor in the space of a single evening, we knew what the theme of our new record had to be.

These tunes were recorded the way we played them live at the Cloak so many times - with no isolation, no headphones, huddled in a tight circle around a few mics. In the case of tracks 5 & 6, we recorded both tunes in one continuous take. For the final a cappella number, we got to do something we've always wanted to do, which was record around a single microphone, in mono. Thanks and appreciation to our family and friends, to Alan for making us sound good, and to the Cloak & Dagger, especially Lindsay, Scott and Rod.