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Thursday 31 May 2012

Destroy Nate Allen - With Our Powers Combined


When you hear the term folk punk it immediately leads you to a certain sound.
The sound of earnest young men and women thrashing on acoustic guitars with clench jawed determination.
Along with the sound is the obligatory 'this guitar kills fascists' statement scratched into the body of said guitar, or if they can afford it, a sticker bearing the legendary Guthrie comment.
So here's husband and wife duo of Destroy Nate Allen who are a self proclaimed folk punk act..........only they are like no other folk punk duo that you have ever heard before.
Instead of pandering to expectations they are more about day-glo clothes, big happy smiles, kindergarten entertainment for adults, and a take on punk and folk that most people wont really feel has much to do with either genre.
Although I would disagree.
From my point of view the relaxing of the genre rules of both camps has provided us with an album that has more to do with the real roots of both styles than most would care to admit.
With this album, 'With Our Powers Combined' they have thrown a multicoloured flash-bomb into both sepia toned genres and given them the garish hues of a cartoon.
It's akin to listening to the music in the heads of hyperactive kids.
Unabashed, unashamed and joyous expressions of whatever is going through their heads at any given time.
Brilliantly unrestrained.
It's their seventh album, the first with a full backing band – Gnarbots – and it's a frenetic head trip of youthful wild abandon as seen through the eyes of two adults who while they are fully aware of the the the good and bad in the world, haven't lost the ability to comprehend it in a more honest and childlike manner, and then express it in a very exciting way.
The album has been my own little ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, and who could ask for more than that?
Big smiles R US. 


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