Supra Naturals

Album Title: 
Wild Education
Release Date: 
Monday, May 20, 2013
Label: 
Distribution: 
Review Type: 

I dunno where I got the feeling, but somehow I had the idea that I'd come across this Dutch Electro/ Rock act before, namely through buying an early EP of them at a local second-hand record store...but a double check learned me that I was apparently mistaken.

Originally from the town of The Hague, Supra Naturals (from a sentence in the movie Pick Of Destiny) was originally started as a duo remix act by Youri de Bruijn (of JIP, on synths, bass & guitar) and Kit Carrera (The Deaf, on drums & programming), whom had known each other from a variety of previous projects. Eventually the duo started to focus on working on material of their own, and started to invited several guest singers (at one point they even had the extra collaboration of guitarist Remco Visser), among which Pat Smith, Janneke Nijhuijs, Linda van Leeuwen, Tim Hofman, Leon Zervos, and Chris Pedis, to work both live and in the studio. In 2010, the duo decided to ask the latter to come join 'em as singer/ MC, and make for a trio. From that point on, Supra Naturals concentrated on original work only. At the end of 2010, clothes line Finger Clothing enters the picture as sponsors, and in early 2011 the collaboration presents the band's first 5-track EP Up The Ante in Dutch super market stores Supermarkt.

Along the line, the band moved to 's-Gravenzande (a town at 28 km West from Rotterdam, in the so-called “Hoek van Holland” region), won some local awards, released the single When The Bats Come Out (Jan. 13, 2012), played on a number of festivals (including Altersonic 2012), and apparently signed to Rough Trade Benelux. Following their busy festival season (the band also joined the traveling Dutch festival Popronde in September and November), the band retreated back into a studio to record its debut full-length. Joining them there was mixing engineer Dave Pemberton, known from his work with the likes of The Prodigy, Faithless and KRS ONE.

Music fans into a mixture of Electro (Drum'n Bass, Dance, and even Dubstep) with Punk-flavoured Rock will simply love this band, both on recordings and live. To know where the band will be playing next, check the “shows” section at the band's own (www.) supranaturals.nl (crap...in going through the info while writing up this review, I see that the band also has another site, namely (www.) supra-naturals.com – check that out for audio/ video too). No music to be found there, neither on the band's page on Last.fm...but there's a total of 8 live videos (some a bit short) to be found at (http://) nl-nl.facebook.com/supranaturals, and at (www.) reverbnation.com there's audio for the current album's song “Recharge”, and the possibility to view the video of the track “When The Bats Come Out” (also on the album). I was unable to check out what was available at (www.) myspace.com/supranaturals (network pc would not allow me to log on at the moment).

Having checked the music on the above mentioned sites, I'm sure that most of you will agree that the album is well worth getting. Personally, I love Wild Education só much, that I'm not even doubting that the album will be featured into my “Best Albums Of 2013” lists. Oh, almost forgot to mention : at the same date as the original release date (Benelux) the band also released a single for the track “Plan 9” (which uses samples from...some movie, I guess!).

98/100