Artist Trampled By Turtles

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Trampled By Turtles

The irony of Trampled By Turtles' name—considering the blazing speed at which the band plays—has been noted before, but it's still worth noting that music by five guys sitting on chairs playing bluegrass on acoustic instruments is rarely so powerfully fast. Like Colorado’s Yonder Mountain String Band, the group approaches traditional roots music with a vigorous, rock-influenced energy. 2007's Trouble expanded the Turtles’ sound by including that radical new invention known as drums, but the band always knows better than to mess around too much with something that works. The focus remains, very much so, on furious instrumental interplay, not to mention the harmonies. The group's latest, Palomino, pairs that blazing dexterity with plaintive ballads—the more relaxed tone of the latter impresses as much as, if not more than, the sheer speed of the former.

Updated 03/29/2010