The Voluntary Butler Scheme – At Breakfast Dinner Tea [Album]

Split Records

August 26, 2009, 07:59 AM

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Rob Jones, AKA The Voluntary Butler Scheme, when playing live is a one-man band. Literally. He loops piano or guitar to provide a rhythm track, uses a kick drum to add a beat, samples his own voice to provide backing vocals and then sings and plays guitar over the top whilst adding occasional kazoo or percussion too. It is endearingly low-tech but also highly inventive. And in earlier singles he shows he has the tunes to boot: 'Tabasco Sole' blends doo-wop, the Jackson Five and sing-along indie-pop to knockout effect. 'Trading Things In' is a two and half minute pop gem in which Rob declares his love (“if you bought running shoes, as breathless as I’d get, I’d buy running shoes too”) to a head-bobbing Motown beat. All of this being said I’ve been eagerly anticipating “At Breakfast Dinner Tea”, the full length player from The Voluntary Butler Scheme, hoping that the charm of the live performances and the killer hooks of these singles can be recreated and sustained over a full album.

"At Breakfast Dinner Tea" is twelve proper tracks (two are 30 second instrumental segues) spread over 40 minutes. Not surprisingly there is nothing to capture the euphoric rush of those two singles and the amateurish charm of the live performances is replaced throughout by an accomplished pop sheen. That being said there is still plenty to recommend this album.

Songs often take a familiar musical motif (that Jackson Five guitar riff in 'Tabasco Sole', the Motown horns and bass lines of 'Multiplayer' and 'Trading Things In', 40s style close harmony crooning in 'Alarm Clock'; even clichéd piano exercise 'Chopsticks' in 'Night Driver') and build a broader musical backdrop around them. The whole album is a delightful smorgasbord of hooks, melodies, clever riffs and catchy choruses. Against this Rob (with soft Midlands burr occasionally showing through) plays the love-lorn indie troubador, singing the praises or in pursuit of the object of his affections whilst negotiating the domestic pitfalls of life: failing watch batteries, laundry to be done, motorways to get to the end of, tea and coffee to be made and drunk. But this is not the gritty realism of a Jarvis Cocker or an Alex Turner: it is day-glo indie-boy pop with a soul groove, Berry Gordy meets Babybird. These are clever pop songs with a big, big heart.

“At Breakfast Dinner Tea” may not propel The Voluntary Butler Scheme into the mass market but fans of smart song-writing and hooks you can’t get out of your head for days should book a place at the table immediately.

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