Destroy Nate Allen (Featuring Gnarboots) - With Our Powers Combined

It’s not very often that simply by reading a band’s bio page, I end up liking said band before getting a chance to actually hear their music. Destroy Nate Allen are a folk punk duo who happen to be married to each other, which by itself is a really cool concept alone. I like folk punk (a lot) and marriage is also a pretty admirable thing to me. These two things combined? Pretty awesome. Also, in an attempt to capture the duo’s live show energy in album format for the band’s upcoming release ‘With Our Powers Combined', DNA enlisted the help of Gnarboots (former members of Link 80 and Shinobu) to add a lot more instrumentation to the songs. I have to admit they chose the absolute perfect musicians for this, because Link 80 and Shinobu albums have more energy than a Voltorb wrestling a Pikachu. Every song on ‘With Our Powers Combined’ is full of this Voltorb/Pikachu energy, and it makes for an entertaining as hell listening experience. Don’t miss out.

The first two songs, “Waking Up Is Hard to Do” and “Emergency”, might be two of the most energetic songs on the record. The former being a really short song that is mostly the musicians slamming on their instruments as hard as possible for short spurts with many intermissions consisting of vocalist Tessa griping about how awful mornings are. It’s a very relatable song, because morning’s are indeed pretty awful. The latter of the two songs is probably the most pop punk oriented song on the record. Nate (guitarist/vocalist) does the majority of the singing for this one, but Tessa is still there to add her spritely, energetic backing vocals. This is probably one of my favorite songs on the record, despite the repetitive nature and the simplicity. Actually those two things are probably my reasoning for liking the song. Plus the organ part is awesome and fits in very well. Most songs have organ, and it kind of makes the album sound way more ska than it would’ve otherwise. I mean, there are quite a few songs that are just straight up ska-punk songs on this record anyway, but what else can you expect when your songs are backed by Asian Man Records dudes? A prime example of this ska business is the song “We Talk Occasionally on the Internet”.

Lyrics on ‘With Our Powers Combined’ are centered around the lives of Nate and Tessa Allen. These are songs about relationships, movies, mornings being lame, and anything else they could cram into these small, energetic folk-punk numbers. The lyrics don’t disappoint, and they’re always belted out with catchy vocal melodies and on top of high-octane instrumentals (with exception of “Long Weekend Blues”, which is an entirely acoustic song). I feel as though Destroy Nate Allen long ago figured out what they do best, and put all effort into honing their craft. The payoff is awesome. Well, at least for the listeners.

If you’re in need of a new folk punk record that will earn itself hundreds of plays on your computer or ipod or whatever, then you needn’t look any further, because ‘With Our Powers Combined’ is excellent. The album is set to be released on June 5th, and you can go ahead and pre-order it over at DNA’s webstore. I highly recommend it, too. Not that my opinions matters or anything...*sigh*

-Idle

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