Play For The Films
  • Play For The Films

Play For The Films

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Paradiddle Records is proud to present "Play for the Films", the debut release of Butchers Blind. Encompassing the rich history of Americana Roots music and taking their influences from early pioneers like the Buffalo Springfield, Gram Parsons and the Band, melding it with today's forerunners of the genre like Wilco, Butchers Blind creates a sound

Paradiddle Records is proud to present "Play for the Films", the debut release of Butchers Blind. Encompassing the rich history of Americana Roots music and taking their influences from early pioneers like the Buffalo Springfield, Gram Parsons and the Band, melding it with today's forerunners of the genre like Wilco, Butchers Blind creates a sound uniquely their own. Pete Mancini's confident, yet vulnerable vocals convey songs about adventure and discovery. "Play for the Films" is inspired in part by Mancini's interpretation of his father's cross country travel journals, discovered by Mancini after having made a similar journey himself. "Play for the Films" will take you on a journey, too.

Butchers Blind: Play for the Films

Rocking alt.country from the heart of Long Island, NY

This Long Island trio dropped a few demo tracks in 2009 (reviewed here), promoting the catchy "One More Time" into a single and attracting some local attention. They've returned with a full album that leans on both their alt.country and rock roots. The Wilco influence is strong (unsurprising, given the band is named after one of Wilco's lyrical creations), and Pete Mancini's voice favors the reediness of Jeff Tweedy; but there's also a melancholy in his delivery that suggests Chris Bell, and a soulful bottom end in the rhythm section that gives the band plenty of rock flavor. Mancini's latest songs were inspired by travel journals kept by his father, as well as his own cross-country travels. From the opening "Brass Bell" you can feel the wanderlust, the urge to blow town, the expectation of the journey ahead and the confidence of someone young enough to enjoy (or at least react to) the moment. The previously released "One More Time," is repeated here at a faster tempo, adding a measure of urgency to the road's opportunities and challenges. There's discord and difficult choices, and emotional dead-ends magnified by the relentless closeness of travel. Communication shuts down, relationships split, and roundtrips don't always end in the same emotional spot they began. The album tips its hat to Steve Earle, as "Highway Song" opens with the signature guitar riff of "Devil's Right Hand," but where Earle's early work, especially Guitar Town, pictured small town inhabitants dreaming of escape, Mancini's protagonists are looking back from the road. The album closes with "Never Changing Thing," a letter home filled with the growing realization that a return trip may not be in the cards. It's a fitting end to an album of emotional changes wrought by physical travel, and physical changes wrought by emotional travel. [2011

"Their melodies are ingratiating in the way of fine pop records, and Mancini is a vocalist whose vulnerability holds you from the first word."

  • Hyperbolium, August 2011

"Butchers Blind has a mournful pop songwriting style, slightly reminiscent of the Counting Crows, but blended with a folk-country sensibility to form a sound that is all their own."

  • Long Island Pulse Magazine
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