Every once in a while a band comes along, and hits you with something so immediate, so forceful and direct, and yet so off kilter, that you can't help but be impressed on the spot. The last band that did this for me was The Butterfly. This EP is the reason why.
Bouncing, urgent rythyms, songs that dip, weave, and head in the most unexpected of directions, and a voice that ranges from subtley intense to utterly demented are the ingredients. Visceral yet sublimely controlled urgency punctuated by the occasional, perfectly judged rest for the listener are the methods used to create the glorious result; music that is as complex as it is instantly memorable.
The EP begins strongly. Very, very strongly indeed. The intro to and first minute of lead track 'Priorities' would be perfectly at home on any System of a Down record, but then something brilliant happens. The song turns into the kind of raucus indie blast that bands like Franz Ferdinand would knock out if they were any good. Then it fuses these two influences almost seamlessly as it heads towards the two minute mark at breakneck speed. So it ends. Completely brilliant. And yet the fun has only just begun.
The second track, 'Eros and Thanatos', is, at its outset, somewhere between funk, atmospheric eloctronica, and the demented rantings of someone who took too many drugs ten years ago. Chugging chords then herald the arrival of a flamenco breakdown. Tthe band somehow find a way to make this make sense, in spite of the crazily brilliant lyrics (Think At The Drive-In), and having covered all this ground within the first minute of the track, keep it interesting to the end.
I haven't heard much like it, ever. Well, I have, but in so many different places, by so many different bands. The Butterfly are almost like a pre-school collage of guitar music, different ideas thrown around with the reckless abandon and joyous enthusiam of children, forming one staggeringly varied yet strangely coherent whole.
By the conclusion of the third track, 'The Art Of Falling', you can add the trademark razor-sharp riffs of Jetplane Landing, twinkly post-rock climbing oriental sounding scales, and more of that brilliant voice. By the time the punk-metal-headfuck 'Dispatches From De Clerambaults's Patient' has blown past you, you'll have heard all the chaos offered by Mike Pattons best work, but not before a cheesy 70's metal outro highlights this bands number one achievement. Even though I can't emphasize enough quite how amazing the passionate, individual and utterly barmy vocals on this EP are, and even though I can barely begin to illustrate the scope of influences on show here, this band never, ever loses sight of it's sense of fun.
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