Alan Sparhawk's solo output after
Low has been anything but predictable. To be fair,
Low kept their listeners guessing for the majority of their nearly 30-year run, evolving from one album to the next and reaching new levels of experimentation with the giddy distortion and studio sound manipulation on 2018's
Double Negative and 2021's
Hey What. After
Low ended following the death of founding member
Mimi Parker in 2022,
Sparhawk released work under his own name, beginning in 2024 with
White Roses, My God, an album of moody funk and electronic programming where vocoded vocals puzzlingly replaced
Sparhawk's usual delicate organic harmonies. Less than a year later,
With Trampled by Turtles goes in yet another unexpected direction, as
Sparhawk joins forces with his friends from the Duluth, Minnesota music community
Trampled by Turtles, leaning into their rootsy bluegrass sound. Even as
Low's sound twisted into new forms over the years, they never quite got into bluegrass territory, and it takes a few songs to acclimate to the combination of high-spirited acoustic music and
Sparhawk's emotionally powerful but usually subtle style. The hearty charge of opening track "Stranger" is about as far away from the troubled dreamscape atmospheres of
White Roses, My God as possible, with a chorus of earthy vocal harmonies, plinky banjos, fiddles, and wooden guitar tones all backing
Sparhawk in one of his more belted performances. This difference is especially emphasized by the songs "Heaven" and "Get Still," both of which appeared in far more abstract versions on
White Roses. Arranged with mandolins and theatrical violin lines instead of cold drum machines and robotic vocals, the versions here show just how adaptable
Sparhawk's songwriting can be. The intentions and moods of the songs come through loud and clear in both articulations. Likewise, after getting over the initial shock of the new bluegrass setting, it's the songs themselves on
With Trampled by Turtles that resonate the most. While the instrumentation is a new twist, this is essentially a bluegrass reading of the kind of beautifully melancholic songcraft
Low excelled at. A few tunes were even originally worked on to be
Low songs before the band ended. Of these songs, "Not Broken" is especially chilling, with
Sparhawk's daughter
Hollis singing the same kind of gliding, elegant vocals that
Parker contributed to
Low for so many years. There are a few other sidebars, as well, like the
Leonard Cohen-esque "Screaming Song," with its boozy singsong melody and cathartic cello scratches, or the angsty chamber-folk closer "Torn & in Ashes," which ends the album with a feeling of hanging unfinishedness.
With Trampled by Turtles isn't quite like anything
Sparhawk has created before, but it's an excellent example of just how mercurial and alien his talents are. As with so much of what came before it,
Sparhawk's songs are so quietly magnificent, the setting for them becomes almost arbitrary. ~ Fred Thomas
