Butcher Boy: "Carve a Pattern"

The time is 2003, the place is Scottish indieland, but this isn’t some lost Belle & Sebastian EP, no sir. Yes, that band and this one might both be named after books about children, but where B&S is about a boy and his loyal mountain dog, Butcher Boy concerns a runaway scamp with a bolt-pistol. And though the fey mountain-loyal darlings undoubtedly cast a long shadow over Glasgow’s new sons Butcher Boy, John Blain Hunt and his band have a concrete alibi for the day “Carve a Pattern” came to light: Hunt had just chanced upon a junked piano, putting down this melody in a flash before the rest of his band began jamming. Six years later and saying balls to the speed of pop, the new Butcher Boy single is ready, taking point for the follow-up LP to the praise-heaped Profit In Your Poetry (2007).

What better way is there to feed the heap than to follow the rulebook written for part one? Hunt and buddies again explore the “shy kids get horny” manifesto bequeathed to them by a long line of fumblers, with the new song circling the bedsit where temperatures are steadily rising. “With blood and tissue / I will miss you / But don’t follow me in / Pretend to drown and I’ll pretend to swim”: easy, stud. Behind him, an ensemble of guitars, cellos, and organs light the room in low wattage, the whole having the rosy effect that any softly coy observational indie should. It’s that dark edge that seals it, though, with images of knives carving roses on doors and hands carving patterns somewhere else, so if you’re looking for something to re-glue your brain after your first significant rummage, look no further than the meat counter. After all, it’s the symmetry of the beef that makes a meal.