Critic's Choice

Related Content

• Ernest House Jr. back at the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs
  January 20, 2012
• Flobots.org seeking donated instruments for its Art 2 Action and Youth on Record programs
  January 4, 2012
• WESTAF introduces Independent Music on Tour, a grant program for local musicians
  March 28, 2012
• R.I.P. Phillip "Phil The Fan" Hamon III
  June 27, 2011
• Reader: I don't know who came up with the name 'Phil the Fan'
  July 6, 2011

More About

• Klee Benally
• Laura Bond
• Navajo Nation
• Ska
• Politics

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

The members of Blackfire, Friday, January 14, at the Bluebird Theater, are among a new breed of young Native American artists breaking from the more traditional musical styles associated with tribal culture to speak the universal language of visceral rock and roll. But that doesn't mean that these siblings from the Big Mountain region of northern Arizona's Navajo Nation eschew the cultural trappings of Native life; they've simply repackaged them into a sound that includes everything from ska to pure pissed-off punk. It's a combination that has found them equally welcome at tribal gatherings such as the Hoiitsà Festival in Arizona and New York's College Music Journal festival. Steeped in a political climate since birth (the Big Mountain region has long been at the center of a debate over tribal land ownership), Jeneda, Clayson and Klee Benally broach themes of imperialism, environmental negligence and the United States's mistreatment of Native peoples; their lyrics, though, are layered on music that's more suited to the mosh pit than the soapbox. -- Laura Bond