Stream: The Buttertones, ‘Jazzhound’
Kevin Bronson on
2
The Buttertones have carved out a unique oeuvre with a decidedly punk approach to pre-punk music. Reverb and attitude on high, their darkly crooned tunes plumb the annals of surf music, garage-rock and even psychobilly to make for a howlin’-good time.
“Jazzhound” is the title track to their just-announced fifth album, coming out April 10 on Innovative Leisure, home to Nick Waterhouse, Allah Las, Tijuana Panthers and Hanni El Khatib, among others. It arrives after a tumultuous couple of years for Richard Araiza, Sean Redman, Modesto ‘Cobi’ Cobiån and London Guzman.
After releasing “Midnight in a Moonless Dream” in 2018, Cobiån suffered a medical scare involving his eye, requiring emergency surgery. He lost half his vision. “It gave us some perspective on our health,” Redman says, noting that the episode drove home “the fact that we have to look after ourselves and one another first, or else the music just can’t happen.” Jokes Araiza: “He says the eye patch adds charm to his character.”
With Araiza leading the songwriting efforts, the Buttertones got to work, eventually convening with Jonny Bell (of Crystal Antlers), who produced the 2018 album and 2017’s “Gravedigging.” They worked at Electro-Vox Studios in Hollywood and made the new album mostly live. “We’d do a few takes,” Araiza says, “and then it was, ‘Alright, we got all the main instruments done, now let’s record on the vibraphone that was used on Pet Sounds,’ you know?”
The band says the album captures the energy of their long-ago debut, cassettes of which feel like prized possessions seven years later. Says Redman: “We are kind of a new band, in a lot of ways, is what it feels like.”
||| Stream: “Jazzhound”
||| Live: The Buttertones play the Fonda Theatre on May 28 (tickets on sale at 9 a.m. Thursday), the Observatory on May 29 (ticket link to come) and Alex’s Bar on May 30 (tickets).
[…] Away Gently,” which follows the February release of the title track, is a pretty croon-tastic jam on an album full of them, with singer Richard Araiza deep into […]
[…] Buttertones today released their fifth album, the croon-alicious “Jazzhound,” a collection that pushes their surf-cum-garage rock into new territory both topically and in song […]