Tuesday 10 October 2007, Vue Weekly, Eighteenth Emergency EP review by Mary Christa O'Keefe

What do they put in the water in Glasgow? The most modern permutations of pop - Orange Juice's sprightly wink, Franz Ferdinand's arty nihilism, Belle and Sebastian's fey retro frolicking - have come from the working class Scottish metropolis. The prettiest, most polished Glaswegian band was the long-defunct Aztec Camera, armed with Roddy Frame's improbably soulful voice and their penchant for Douglas Sirk-level melodrama and flourishes of Spanish guitar.
Butcher Boy builds on those ingredients, John Blain Hunt's silky vocals wreathing through the melodies like a modern Mario Lanza, heavy-lidded and roué. 18th Emergency is a brisk little EP that wears its craftsmanship next to its heart on its virtual record sleeve. Half its tracks are re-jigged from the group's debut, Profit in Your Poetry; the rest are new. Recorded in a non-studio space with intriguing acoustics by this seven-member outfit, the EP sounds warm, full, and alive. It also has captures an autumnal feel - the scrape and scuttle of leaves falling from trees, rasping against rooftops and windows would be mighty partners to the orchestral strings and Hunt's swoon-inducing voice.

*

Thursday 6 September 2007, Stylus, Eighteenth Emergency EP review by Richard O'Brien (B+)

Q. What would you expect a band whose label shares its name and owner with a C86 classic indie-pop club-night to sound like?

A. Not, actually, Butcher Boy.


Despite their heritage as the first and only act signed to first-wave survivor Ian Watson's How Does It Feel To Be Loved imprint, the sounds here are nowhere near as monochrome as the specter of that tape would suggest. The songs carry on the noble tradition of graceful longing, the beatification of the miniature, and everything else that fuelled their predecessors' quiet explosions of the heart; but rise above the regrettable tendencies for two-note melodies and grandma's-shed production.

Singer John Blain Hunt has a knack for soft, gorgeous falling cadences, staking out an admirably idiosyncratic lyrical landscape, a place where hearts beat too fast, full of heavy coats, boxing gloves, sunken cinemas, and a forlorn but ever-hopeful tenderness. Topics cover familiar ground (y'know, love 'n' shit) but there's enough enigma to Hunt's imagery and enough musical variation to keep things well afloat.

The EP opens with a slow piano number, which may have been better placed at the end. As an opener it adds little but a lingering sense of melancholy; against which, the Eastern stomp of There Is No-One Who Can Tell You Where You've Been comes as a startling but not unwelcome surprise. One can't help hoping that the vocals had been mixed higher here in the first verse - by the second, the levels seem to be much kinder to each other. It's odd to start with a comedown, when you're finishing with a dancer, albeit of the gladioli-and-hearing-aid kind; Keep Your Powder Dry closes the affair with the band's most obvious acknowledgement of its debt to the Smiths and the Postcard bunch. Hunt clearly has hugs for you if your particular brand of frisky guitar and lispy poetry was born in the '80s.

Although the most true to type, it's also Butcher Boy's strongest moment, and the most likely candidate for repeat listens - not to mention radio play. They push outside the template with charming, restrained violin, while in true twee style the melody pushes the edge of Hunt's range. Romantic lines like "From sky to sand, to sea to Meadowlands, to Hallowe'en to happier times" get their power from the vulnerability in the light, spinning vocals, always barely under the singer's control. The preceding track plays off similar rhetoric, with just acoustic guitar for company. There's a trace of Malcolm Middleton to proceedings, if he drank less whiskey and got more sunshine.

It's in the snowy dusting that covers the EP - the music would work well in winter; wistful, resigned, but glistening in its softness. The artists differ in how they take the cold - Middleton retreats, turns on the heater, gives way to solitude and bleak misanthropy. Butcher Boy wrap up in a scarf, step out across the crunching leaves and hold your hand to keep you both warmer. How Does It Feel To Be Loved? Well, a little bit like this…

*

Monday 3 September 2007, Bearded Magazine, Eighteenth Emergency EP review

Recorded in the living room of singer John Blain Hunt, the songs on The Eighteenth Emergency EP commence with the disconcerting sound of a distant piano playing from what sounds like the back of a dusty church hall in rural Surrey. The plaintive tone of the far-away piano conjures an image of an old spinster dressed in tweed, helping out that nice young man on his song as he needs some piano to sing over.

In the opening, titular track Eighteenth Emergency, Hunt's voice emerges from the dust-filled warmth of the sunbeams as they slant through the grimy windows of the hall. The mournful cello smoothes its way into the pared-down mix, such as it is, and the smells of fusty curtains, am-dram props and a well-used tea urn conjure themselves into your mind. When the backing chorus appears from out of the comfortable gloom, as if angels were just wandering by and thought it would be nice (like the old lady did) to help out the nice young man singing his song, you feel as if you are at some innocent, undiscovered moment of musical time where you, and you alone, are witnessing a musical milestone played in a cluttered little hall where in a couple of hours the Brownies will be having their weekly meeting. You feel lucky to be part of it, and you stand enraptured, your ears thanking you.

So, to arrive at this level of intimate performance the EP's story goes thus: the band played a concert down a phone line to a radio station in Boston (perhaps because Massachusetts has banned the use of CD players on air, I don't know) from inside Hunt's Glasgow flat and the band enjoyed it so much they decided to record in the same homely venue at a later date. The result is this EP. It is a worthwhile result and a fine example of what you can do with a nice high-ceilinged Georgian flat and some heartbreaking vocals over simple, intimate, naive musical backing. And indeed the vocals are lovely, and complemented exceedingly by the simplicity of the recording. It is deeply lovely; there is no other way to describe it, unless you were pushed, in which case you could say it is raw, unpolished and haunting, but with real, irresistible, palpable charm. It drifts away to nothing at the end, but you'll be reaching for the repeat button before it disappears completely.

The second track, There Is No-One Who Can Tell You Where You've Been, with a Spanish guitar twiddling away, kicks off into something that originally has the whiff of the post-tune-up-then-a-quick-jam about it, but the cello and vocals push away this doubt and the song suddenly takes flight. "I'd break my back if it might help to break your fall" sings Hunt, and you realise he means it. A vague and tiny allusion to Morrissey rears its head (impossible to avoid) as Hunt rattles through his lyrics and his Mexican-tinged romance, but this is a song that is not overplayed, overwrought or over emoted. It ends proudly and abruptly: the ballad of a romantic mariachi, a statement of self-empowerment and love.

React Or Die is a stripped down, bare track with up-close passionate vocals and a timid guitar, bolstered by a forceful cello. But intonation and a strong sense of purpose is let down by the shortness of the track. Barely getting going, its promise is dashed by a vague ending and the listener is left keening forward awaiting more, but it is stolen from us. Its tone is impressionist, leaving us all too soon; we are denied the potential of more pleasure by its briefness. It is short but perfectly formed. The final track on the EP is bouncy, almost staccato – hesitant even – and the pessimistic refrain "keep your powder dry," is cheerily vaunted out despite the musical hesitancy. A jolly skiffle tune in the style of a relaxed session or demo tape, the intimacy of the EP is continued: it is engaging despite its lack of body and a willingness to be as inconsequential as possible. Mandolins and distant snare drum again conjure the church hall atmosphere. In its ending, the song dissipates into nothingness, but leaves a warm glow behind it.

The EP is at times vague, teasing and the songs hint at a greatness that this too-short offering promises but doesn't deliver, preferring to hint at then shy away. The deliberate ultra-lo-fi is charming but smacks a little of afternoons spent in aimless, wandering teenage band practices. On the back of this EP the next Butcher Boy album will be an intriguing listen, and it requires that their first album be perused post haste. The EP is a tasteful reminder of what good musicians can do on a whim and it is a taster, a promoter, a pusher for the possible future remarkableness of Butcher Boy and their music. A good way to introduce the band and their mellow style and musings, the EP will be fleeting in your ears, short in your mind, but it will set up home there and it will not be forgotten.

*

Thursday 15 February 2007, Drowned In Sound, Girls Make Me Sick review by Daniel Ross (9 out of 10)

A long line of Scottish miserablists finds itself continuing in full health with Butcher Boy's John Blain Hunt as a natural successor to Edwyn Collins. Much has been made of this seven-piece's potential as a thrashing, poetic and ebulliently winsome voice in the jangling dark, and with My Latest Novel jetting off to the States there's a multi-instrumental hole in the tapestry of Scottish pop.

And those who frequently make so much of these things are right to do so here. Girls Make Me Sick is a triumphantly bitter and sad slice of whimsy, custom-built for the fey kids down the disco in 1996 and just danceable enough to make it appropriate in this decade. The boogie-orgasm basslines are sweetly buoyed by explosive strings and gentle melodica, all given ballast by Hunt's impeccable lyrics. He sings of wasted affection and the misery of reminiscence, but it's all delivered with such ballistic wit and glam-Ian Curtis swagger that you'd be forgiven for thinking that this man is in love.

He is not, and it is to our advantage.

*