Trampled By Turtles

Ignorance and incorrect assumptions had kept me from listening to Trampled by Turtles until I got a mix with their song "Stranger" on it—from that point on my mind was opened up to the fact that they were not a jam band at all. As the Duluth natives manage to meld bluegrass, country, and folk, they avoid fitting into any of those genres singularly. From their wistful, backcountry sounds, the slowdrive progression that ended their 2007 album Trouble was another example of how they inventively evade definition. Friday's show at the Cabooze fixes to be a rousing warm-up to an enviable spring-into-summer adventure on the road with the sheer volume of festivals they're playing—anything from bluegrass fests to the State Fair to events across the sea in Belfast. They'll pack along with them the old and the new and the even newer, with their spot-on banjo, sublime fiddle, mandolin madness, and finely tuned, dreamy harmonies for an amazingly atmospheric rush to the senses. With Pistol Whipping Party Penguins. 18+.
Fri., May 9, 8 p.m., 2008