Review: Butch Walker - I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart

Butch Walker's fingerprints are all over a ranging collection of music. From power-pop (Marvelous 3)to glam rock (2006's The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and The Lets-Go-Out-Tonights!) to earnest acoustic numbers (2004's Letters), the LA-via-Atlanta singer/producer has taken time to explore every corner of the musical world. With his fifth studio release, I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart, Butch takes on alt-country genre and comes away with the best record of his career.

Songs like the easy-cruising opener "Trash Day" and hand-clapping stand out "She Likes Hair Bands" pick up where Butch left off with 2008's Sycamore Meadows, evoking Tom Petty at the height of his success. Meanwhile, the hauntingly somber vocal work in "Don't You Think That Someone Should Take You Home" and "Canadian Ten" taps into a vulnerability that is eerily reminiscent of alt-country deity Ryan Adams.

Lyrically, the themes throughout the album are well-balanced. Many tracks plead out to former loves ("They Don't Know What We Know", "Pretty Melody") and take sobering looks at past mistakes ("Canadian Ten" and "Stripped Down Version"). Yet these are tempered by the rousing "woah-ohs" in the galloping "Temporary Title" and drunken debauchery recounted in "Days/Months/Years". "Be Good Until Then" closes the album optimistically as Butch waxes poetic about the many life lessons he's learned over naked acoustic guitar strums.

While Butch's new backing band The Black Widows stretch themselves thin over a wide array of instruments used on the record, they always come together to make a truly unified sound. Still, Butch himself remains the star,as he adds heaps of strength and character to his voice that makes the record immediately grasping. A lot of credit also has to go to The Film's Michael Trent, who co-wrote most of the albums songs.

Despite his past forays into other genres and his work as a producer with an eclectic group of artists ranging from Fall Out Boy to Gnarls Barkley to Weezer, Butch may have finally found a niche most conducive to his sound. Although you can rarely count on Butch to keep one sound for too long, I Liked You Better When You Had No Heart displays the sound of a man who has traversed much of the music scene and finally returned home with wise words and even better music.

Grade: A-

"Trash Day" (download)




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