JEWELS & GLORY (2 vinyls)

Description

MIXED AND MASTERED BY JIM DIAMOND (WHITE STRIPES, BELLRAYS ETC...). “You want to build walls, we want to feed the people / You want to pile up your money, we want to spend it all…” sings Ray (in English in the original). From the intro of The Blue Butter Pot’s third album, the tone is set. Oliv and Ray make fun of the jewels and glory mentioned in the LP title. They prefer the authenticity of catchy riffs and the big, solid beat of a drum kit to anything that shines, except perhaps the sweat beading up while listening to these 13 tracks. Don’t be fooled by the “Blue” in their name. These possessed souls don’t just play the devil’s music, even if it can be found in chord progressions or in spirit on many of their tracks. When asked about their shared influences, Ray and Oliv cite Led Zeppelin. The battered image of old hand Seasick Steve also hovers over them. And Jack White is invoked for his seventies feel and his love of raw sound. Inspiration, like the band’s name, is spontaneous. The duo composes in the studio by jamming. The same goes for the lyrics, much to the despair of blank-page sufferers. “I write everything down in a notebook. I have bits of phrases in my pockets. This time, they were written to the music, then we built a story around them.” And in these times when the horizon has shrunk, it’s good to listen to these stories where screen addicts, a lone lumberjack, customers of a speakeasy or a certain Mr Painkiller cross paths without ever meeting. Born by chance, The Blue Butter Pot is a duo formed by Ray (vocals, guitar) and Oliv (drums). In their view, this third album is “a little more committed and pragmatic than the previous ones.” But that’s all that has changed, because at heart, they say: “We like the old sound with a more recent twist. Absolutely no electro!” With Jim Diamond at the controls, “Jewels & Glory” is guaranteed free of synthetic tinkering, but with cowbell here and there, back-and-forths between muscular rock and dirty blues as we like it, forays into funk or the soundtrack of a Sergio Leone film with Ray and Oliv in the lead roles, surrounded by a fine cast of guests. There are anthems to friendship in backroom dives. Bitter lyrics about a world that no longer works. Even downright daring moments when The Blue Butter Pot proves that you can still say anything in a song, provided you play on the bawdy register and the double meanings of dirty blues. We still don’t know what the world after will look like. But we’d like to have this organic, timeless and powerful sound, this voice rich like old whisky, and these tracks packed with references that The Blue Butter Pot has made its own with remarkable elegance as the soundtrack to our future adventures. “THE BLUE BUTTER POT CONFIRMS ITS IMPORTANCE IN THE POST DOWNHOME BLUES ROCK MOVEMENT, WITH THIS NEW ALBUM PRODUCED BY JIM DIAMOND.” --- SOUL BAG --- “The Blue Butter Pot marks a garage and rock turn brought to life by Jim Diamond’s production.” --- ROCK & FOLK --- “Guttural vocals, hypnotic guitar and a basic drum rhythm create a heavy, very garage atmosphere, close to what the late Bottles Rockets were doing with their explosive alt-country.” --- BLUES'n'CO ---