PhilPaine.com

Accord­ing to their web­site, each mem­ber of The Builders and the Butch­ers is orig­i­nal­ly from Anchor­age, Alas­ka and migrat­ed sep­a­rate­ly to Port­land, Ore­gon to start a career in music. Port­land, nowa­days, is what Seat­tle was in the 1980’s: a con­sis­tent gen­er­a­tor of good new music. The scene is eclec­tic, with punksters rub­bing shoul­ders with indie rock­ers, folkies, and world music types. The Builders and the Butch­ers are basi­cal­ly indie rock­ers, but their music is suf­fused with strains of folk and gospel. There’s noth­ing wimpy to be heard on their sec­ond album, Sal­va­tion is a Deep Dark Well (2010). It’s one of my favourites of this year. I’ve re-played it a num­ber of times, even though my new lis­ten­ing back­log press­es for atten­tion. Front­man Ryan Sollee pro­vides vig­or­ous vocals and gui­tar. The songs bal­ance tune­ful acces­si­bil­i­ty with intel­li­gent lyrics and skill­ful musi­cian­ship. Barcelona and Vam­pire Lake are real­ly fine, but all eleven songs are good. I par­tic­u­lar­ly like Har­vey Tum­bleson’s man­dolin and ban­jo work, but all the back­up is great, includ­ing a host of guest play­ers that include sev­er­al cel­lists. But this crowd­ed line-up nev­er feels exces­sive. Every­thing is there for a rea­son, and the result­ing sound is crisp, not murky. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I haven’t been able to acquire the epony­mous first album, which I will report on at the first opportunity.