"All of This and Nothing" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song I really love, by an artist I haven't featured in the previous This Year, Portions For Foxes, or Better Things series. It alternates between Obscure and Famous songs; feel free to argue either way if you're so inclined. See the introduction for more.
This week we flip back to Obscure, with a band that I've tried to fit into this Monday series almost every year. (The band is all men, I think, so they really didn't fit with Portions for Foxes.) I finally managed to do it.
The Builders and the Butchers have a sound that I want to call unique - it's folk-based, but more in the rock vein, though nothing like the concept of "folk rock." They sound like what would have happened if rock had developed in the Appalachians, out of murder ballads, rather than the Mississippi delta.
Maybe. Something like that, anyway.
They have a lot of great songs, and they have a new record coming out this year that I haven't heard yet as I type this.
And, maybe because picking one song was tough, what I chose was a medley of two songs from their live record Where the Roots All Grow. So my favorite Builders and Butchers song is In The Branches/The Coal Mine Fall.
B&B songs are deeply atmospheric, sometimes telling semi-clear stories but more often full of apocalyptic, specific, haunting imagery, to imply and tease and suggest:
In branches of a burning tree
'Said it was all a game.
And your daddy got bent and twisted
In the bed that he made.
You'll end up the same.
Or, in one of the lines that comes to my mind most often:
A true love will leave you on your knees in the rain
A true love will leave you in the rain
This medley has the energy of a great live recording, two great songs full of atmosphere and menace to run through, and sees the band at one of their peaks. I recommend all of their stuff, for anyone who likes dark Americana music, but this is, I think, a magnificent entry point.
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