This Canadian teen bluegrass trio has hooked up with a New York management company, Invasion Group, and the guys have a new look and sound that is more polished and progressive than what people may have seen from them on the festival circuit in recent years. They are keeping the basic bluegrass approach, and including drums for their live shows.

The new CD on the United For Opportunity label is expected in the latter part of 2009, titled Viva La Vida for their grassy remake of the Coldplay hit from last year which anchors the project. In addition to Abrams Brothers John on guitar and James on fiddle, cousin Eli Abrams is on bass, Nick Piccinini is on banjo, Chris Brown on keyboards, and Anton Fier on drums. All three Abramses share vocal duties.

They have released a single and music video for Viva La Vida in advance of the CD. The video, directed by Derek Horn, debuted this past weekend on CMT and is getting some attention from the folks at the network. The single is available now in iTunes.

Here’s a look at the video…

If they can get a fraction of the attention going to another group of handsome young brothers in the pop music world, 2009 could be a very good year for The Abrams Brothers.

They were recipients of the 2006-2007 Daniel Pearl Memorial Violin Award, awarded by Mark O’Connor on behalf of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. Pearl was a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Many readers may recall the shock and outrage that accompanied his murder, but may not have known that he was also an avid fan of bluegrass and old time music, and played the fiddle at DC-area jams when he was at home in the US.

The brothers were awarded a hand crafted violin made by noted maker Jonathan Cooper. Two young award recipients are chosen each year at the Mark O’Conner Strings Conference in California, and the recipients get the use of the violin for a year, during which they are charged to uphold the values of Daniel Pearl: excellence, peace and belief in humanity.

The Abrams Brothers toured Israel earlier this year, specifically to take the opportunity to play the Pearl violin in his homeland, and they shared the poignancy of this gesture in their account of the visit.

“This was especially meaningful, as we soon have to return the violin to allow another person to play it and take forward Daniel’s message of peace and harmony through music and the written word. This is a responsibility we have taken very seriously, so we were especially pleased to be able to travel to Israel to share the memory of Daniel and what he stood for with the festival attendees.”

To listen to the 24/7 WWB audio stream online, just visit their streaming page, and choose a connection speed and file type. Uncle Billy’s show begins at 6:00 p.m. (eastern).