Review | Trampled by Turtles - Stars & Satellites
As of a couple years ago, I had never heard of Trampled By Turtles. With their release of Palomino, my eyes were opened to a band quite unlike anything out there. Fast forward through multiple live shows of theirs I took in, and we get to the anticipation of another album. Here we have Stars and Satellites, consisting of a few songs I already knew, I eagerly awaited its release.
To say its a beautiful album, that’d probably be an understatement. I like to think the album is a macrocosm to lead single “Alone,” its beginnings small, almost like a dandelion blowing in the wind, and the wind blows it apart into millions of pieces and all of a sudden, your lawn is littered with them. The song gets stronger and stronger, and more and more majestic.
Each listen to this record reveals a few more wrinkles, a few more layers of beautifully composed music thats every bit as folksy as their previous efforts. On S&S you have the sweeping, lofty bluegrass songs (Listen to Alone, Midnight on the Innerstate, Widowers Heart) & the punk / rock influenced rambling barnstormers (Listen to Risk or Walt Whitman).
When it comes to a top to bottom record, Stars & Satellites has very little weakness, this is not only one of my favorite folk / bluegrass records out this year, but just one of my favorite records. The instrumentation is outstanding, the harmonies are crisp and near perfect, oh and the songwriting is damn fine.
