The biggest difference you notice about Butterflies’ Residual Child is how much of a stark contrast it is to bands like Arcade Fire and The National, which explore the painstakingly boring routines of everyday life —a Pitchfork review labeled The National’s brand of music as ‘sad bastard melodrama’.
Butterflies, meanwhile, are reveling in the simplicity of such procedures. To the Chapel Hill band, simple doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice for beauty and charm.
For the group’s second album, vocalist Josh Kimbrough, bassist Ross Connolly and drummer TJ Maiani added their producer Patrick Jones to the lineup to man the keyboard and synthesizers.
Friends (or maybe more) catching up over lunch, inability to communicate feelings and the search to live a meaningful life are some of the topics of choice for the local bunch, set to a shimmering, summery blend of clear and warbling electric guitar, synths and drums.
Even though the themes might be serious, for the most part the band’s sound is so upbeat and hopeful that you can’t be brought down. Butterflies make you feel as much levity as its name suggests.
It’s a double-edged sword, however, and by the end of the album it seems that Butterflies are toeing a fine line between boyish charm and innocence and sheer naiveté.
Even though the more rock-heavy “Forklift” discusses troubles with a past lover as “kid games” and hopes for an older, wiser relationship, it still doesn’t feel all that serious.
After all, how much luck can you have with a love song like “Canteen,” with a chorus of “I wanna dry your boots/I wanna load your weapons/ I wanna fill your canteen” ?
What, then, to make of “Sleepless?” Sandwiched quietly in the middle of the record, it falls into the handful of radio-friendly songs Residual Child has (along with “Guitarist” and “Goodbye (Like a Stranger)”), but it’s nothing like the rest of the album. The bubbly pop-rock is gone, replaced with a slow, mournful electric guitar and strings.
