Bones in Butter Out But Not Down

 

The Electric Light Orchestra, Magazine and Frank Tovey walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, “What is this, some kind of joke?“

This is a review of Down But Not Down by Bones in Butter, but in truth it is more a review of the band itself.

Some bands are cool. Some bands get the balance of obscure versus edgy right and some get it wrong. Bones in Butter are a band - or perhaps a man pretending to be a band - that stand by their music. There really isn't much more I could find other than an out of date website with that sentence above. Talented, insightful and enigmatic. I don't pretend to understand everything about them because I do not need to.

Magazine and Frank Tovey are two of the coolest references from a golden age that shaped my life. I would add Pere Ubu and a few others. But not many. Yes to the Banshees and the Cure and those idiots that flirted with fascist imagery and somehow got away with it. But behind the headliners there were the truly cool. The crafters of immaculate and extravagant music that spoke a new language. The musicians that moved the world.

Bones In Butter would be comfortable in their company.

I hear so much in this song. Clever references and nods to a host of musicians from Roxy Music to Bowie to just about every cool band between 1979 and 2000. This is music for people that get music. Smart, well made and satisfying.

I enjoy so much of this song, it is balanced to perfection between a sardonic vocal and melodies from guitar and keyboards that excite and pull you in. You don't need to know anything to enjoy this. It has depth.

Pure perfection.

This is the song on Spotify