{"id":1846,"date":"2025-05-30T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/alan-sparhawk-lets-go-on-with-trampled-by-turtles\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T14:00:00","slug":"alan-sparhawk-lets-go-on-with-trampled-by-turtles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/alan-sparhawk-lets-go-on-with-trampled-by-turtles\/","title":{"rendered":"Alan Sparhawk Lets Go on \u2018With Trampled By Turtles\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/nDUUqTeg.jpeg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"Alan Sparhawk (Credit: Alexa Viscius)\"><\/figure>\n<p>Last year\u2019s <em>White Roses, My God<\/em>\u2014Alan Sparhawk\u2019s first record since the 2022 passing of his wife and musical partner Mimi Parker\u2014felt like an exorcism. Using a TC Helicon Voicetone pedal, Sparhawk twisted and distorted his voice while eschewing guitars for computers and keyboards; metal machine music to take the place of grief.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sparhawk returns less than a year later with his new album, <em>With Trampled by Turtles <\/em>(May 30)<em>, <\/em>which feels like a truer expression of sorrow. Working with fellow Duluth musicians Trampled by Turtles, this album plays like a downbeat version of Neil Young\u2019s 1978 album <em>Comes a Time<\/em>, leaning into and subverting the bluegrass sounds of his backing band to explore sadness and community.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/05\/taylor-swift-buys-back-music-rights\/\">Taylor Swift Buys Back Music Rights After Years-Long Dispute<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/05\/the-budos-band-take-seven-steps-to-heaven\/\">The Budos Band Take Seven Steps to Heaven<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/05\/bruce-springsteen-boosts-mexican-soldaderas-on-adelita\/\">Bruce Springsteen Boosts Mexican \u2018Soldaderas\u2019 On \u2018Adelita\u2019<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Recorded in just two days, <em>With Trampled by Turtles <\/em>is everything <em>White Roses, My God <\/em>was not. The songs here possess a lived-in warmth, and Sparhawk\u2019s unadorned voice, missing Parker\u2019s harmonies, is front and center. Yet, the haunting melodies that gut-punch you on a Low record can be found here, through different textures.<\/p>\n<p>Sparhawk had already played much of the record live earlier this year when touring behind <em>White Roses, My God. <\/em>After clearing out the glitchy discomfort of those tracks to start the shows, he would strip away the vocal effects and sing unreleased songs such as \u201cStranger\u201d and \u201cTorn &amp; in Ashes.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/8sFk8AgH.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-465212\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/8sFk8AgH.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/8sFk8AgH-340x340.jpeg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/8sFk8AgH-768x768.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/8sFk8AgH-498x498.jpeg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><\/figure>\n<p>Without the splatter of electronics and the obscured vocals, these songs feel like more direct paeans to sadness. It\u2019s as if the guardedness of <em>White Roses<\/em> has sloughed off, and the weariness of the grieving process has set in. Sparhawk even resurrects <em>White Roses <\/em>tracks \u201cHeaven,\u201d this time in a folky incantation singing, \u201c<em>Heaven \/ It\u2019s a lonely place if you\u2019re alone \/ I wanna be there with the people that I love\u201d<\/em> and \u201cGet Still,\u201d which now feels like a hymnal; scrubbed of any electronics or distorted vocals.<\/p>\n<p>The addition of Trampled by Turtles, best known for their frenetic sound, offers tasteful accompaniment that enhances Sparhawk\u2019s songs rather than drowning them in bluegrass trappings. Take \u201cScreaming Song,\u201d perhaps the rawest incantation of loss here. Sparhawk begins the song by singing, \u201c<em>When you flew out of the window and into the sunset \/ I thought I would never stop screaming \/ I thought I would never stop screaming your name.<\/em>\u201d The song then builds as Ryan Young\u2019s violin gets louder, becoming a scream to mirror Sparhawk\u2019s sadness.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, \u201cDon\u2019t Take Your Light\u201d features restrained banjo as Sparhawk sings, \u201c<em>Don\u2019t take your light out of me<\/em>\u201d like a desperate mantra. But perhaps the most arresting moment on the record is the spare \u201cNot Broken\u201d where he duets with his daughter, Hollis, whose vocals bear an eerie resemblance to her mother\u2019s.\u00a0The communal feel of <em>With Trampled by Turtles <\/em>shows that Sparhawk isn\u2019t alone in his sadness. Instead, this collaboration gives us one of the most stunning albums of the year, a deeply moving record that rewards repeat listens. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year\u2019s White Roses, My God\u2014Alan Sparhawk\u2019s first record since the 2022 passing of his wife and musical partner Mimi Parker\u2014felt like an exorcism. Using a TC Helicon Voicetone pedal,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1105,1008,24,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alan-sparhawk","category-low","category-pushly","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}