I've long had a problem with bands with lead singers who remind me of Ian Curtis. This goes years back to Interpol and Editors and others and I thought this basic sticking point of mine would be a problem when I first started listening to LA's Buttertones latest album Jazzhound.
Because in the opening track of the record, Phantom Eyes, frontman Richard Araiza did sound enormously like Ian Curtis. It's not something I ever really enjoy much. Ian Curtis sounds like Ian Curtis. The way he sings is essentially a mannerism but with Curtis it works. What's the point in encroaching on that territory!
Fortunately from this point onwards things get enormously better. Araiza sheds his fascination with the Macclesfield Rilke and becomes one bit Morrissey, one bit Edwyn Collins, one bit Paul Quinn, one bit Billy McKenzie over the next few songs.
It's a winning and endearing formula and musically The Buttertones keep up the momentum. Clearly rampant Anglophiles, they ransack the pleasures of giddy Eighties British Indie Pop with reckless abandon. Particularly indebted to the early Smiths, they shimmy up and down the scales with thrilling energy, never sitting still for a moment and the record is a constant diversion..
If I can't quite give it top marks because the debts it owes are all too obvious Jazzhound is nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable album. With Denial You Win Again, particularly standing out from the pack as one of my favourite songs of the year thus far. Buttertones aren't innovators on any level but they're certainly gifted impressionists.
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