Soul Butchers is a band I’ve been meaning to listen to, live or recorded, pretty much since it came out and had several people who I trust recommend them. But between my writer’s block and COVID-19 hitting, as well as my forgetfulness, I hadn’t until I recently purchased the band’s 2020 6-song EP, Landfall. Well, I deserve a bit of a snack to the head, because it’s really fucking good.
The sound is a snarling, angry mix of punk, rock, metal and blues led by the soaring, pissed off vocals of Justin Rowland and wailing guitar of Allan Uthman, supported by the rhythm section of bassist Rob Bernette and drummer Joe Peluso. It seems Soul Butchers are a bit of a mystery or secret; the band does not have a web site and its Bandcamp page does not list band members or print any lyrics.
But it’s no mystery how good the music is from the start; “Crawl” features Uthman going from rough and bluesy to churning punk/metal, while Rowland urgently sings of an apparent power/domination situation he does anything he can to leave. “Have to Die” has a hilarious but ominous singalong chorus after a cool bass and guitar intro that turns into punchy, rough punk, and Rowland sees only one over-the-top way to fix things. After the mid-tempo crunch of “Landfall,” Uthman in particular ups the voltage, with blazing riffs on “Nervous” illustrating Rowland’s apparent frantic attempts to interact with people, and the hammering punk of the almost out of control “Pills,” where Rowland shows the effects of amphetamine abuse, eventually losing control. “Trail of Blood” ends the EP with a heavy metallic guitar riff and Rowland trying to get out from under a person, government or system that bring out violent tendencies in him and other people. Sadly, he sees no way out and no fewer victims.
The one issue I have with some of the EP is that the vocals occasionally get a bit buried by the music, which may not be too bad to some with Uthman’s supercharged playing, and I should admit that I have been diagnosed with a bit of high frequency hearing loss (40 or so years planted much too close to speakers will do this to a person). Soul Butchers can be found on Bandcamp, Facebook and Instagram.
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