Concertwire.com

Trampled by Turtles released their latest studio record, Palomino, on April 10, 2010. Their blend of dazzling speedgrass coupled with thoughtful, Townes Van Zant-esque ballads launched them from hometown phenomenon to national status. With a sound that’s a bracing hybrid of classic American songwriting, bluegrass and folk, this is forceful acoustic music from the land of ice and snow ’ of dark winters, isolation and numbing cold ’ delivered at breakneck pace with the fervor of religion. The five members of what would become Trampled by Turtles formed in 2003 in Duluth, Minnesota, the Great Lakes port town that had spawned slowcore pioneers Low a decade earlier. Down in the “The Cities” (Minneapolis and St. Paul to the rest of the world), such fabled Minnesota brethren as Dylan through to the Jayhawks had raised the bar pretty damn high, songcraft-wise. Within this contained music scene, the future members of TxT did their time in punk and rock and roll bands, brandishing their electricity proudly, before going “organic” with acoustic instruments.