Review: Butcher Brown’s ‘#KingButch’

Here’s a tip for whoever is reading at the Richmond, Virginia Chamber of Commerce: when you produce your next showcase commercial, make sure that Butcher Brown does the soundtrack. Better yet, license “For the City,” the penultimate track on the band’s newly released #KingButch (Concord Jazz, 2020).

The song’s hook is, “We’re known for the city, yeh yeh. Yeh yeh./And we all about the city, yeh yeh. Yeh yeh./RVA that’s the city. Yeh yeh./The city known as RVA. Yeh yeh./And you know we all about it, yeh yeh. Yeh yeh./Don’t you ever, ever doubt it, yeh yeh.” That’s the kind of hands-in-the-air singalong verse that makes commercials producers giddy.

There’s plenty to make ordinary music fans giddy on #King Butch, the Richmond band’s eighth release and major-label debut, beginning with the crackling rhythm team of bassist Andrew Randazzo and drummer Corey Fonville, who might be the best known of the band’s five members through his tenure in bands led by Nicholas Payton and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah (“Broad Rock” could almost be lifted from an Adjuah set). With elements of neo-soul, disco, Minneapolis funk, Southern rap, and a dash of rock, Butcher Brown seems to be merging into the Roots’ we-can-play-anything lane. Add strong jazz solos and an ear for the underappreciated late 70s work of masters such as Herbie Hancock, and Butcher Brown can come off like a Piedmont version of the West Coast Get Down minus the spirituality.

But mere pitch-meeting descriptions (“P-Funk meets jazz at halftime on a football field”) don’t do justice to the way Butcher Brown effortlessly throws the genre code-switch, often several times within a song.

Take the closing “IDK,” the title of which might be a cheeky answer to the question ‘What genre is this song?’ It starts with a rock beat for the A and B sections and a bridge that gives to a boppish trumpet decoration by hornman (he also plays gritty tenor saxophone) and MC Marcus “Tennishu” Tenney. The song downshifts into a slow, almost ceremonial, four, then back to the opening rhythm for Morgan Burrs’  ice-pick-y guitar solo. The process is repeated for loopy synth acrobatics by DJ Harrison.

As the last of 13 cuts on a swift, 42-minute program, you could read “IDK” as a sly reminder that for all the danceable grooves and chest-pounding verses, Butcher Brown’s members have an encyclopedic grasp of musical styles of the past half-century and formidable chops.

And wit. It’s hard to think of the record’s first single “Cabbage (DFC)” as a fond homage to Herbie Hancock’s Man-Child-era Headhunters, right down to unison, Tom Tom 84 horn riffs, and the Wah Wah Watson guitar jabs on the upbeat (Watson was also an RVA native). It’s pitch-perfect, but also fabulously tight and well played.

“Hopscotch” is a too-brief showcase for the versatile Tenney who delivers his verses over a  hustling, rolling six-beat rhythm, then picks up his tenor to deliver a guest verse. He’s a one-man posse cut.

On the album’s title track, Tenney raps, “KingButch comin’ like a freight train/In the left lane/150 miles an hour—kind of insane,” Yes, and insanely fun, too. #KingButch is unapologetically a party record, and couldn’t we all use a party right now?

Yeh yeh. Yeh yeh.

#KingButch is available now on CD, LP, digital, and on streaming services.

Tracklist: (1) Fonkadelica, (2) #KingButch, (3) Broad Rock, (4) Cabbage (DFC), (5) Gum In My Mouth, (6) Frontline Intro, (7) Frontline, (8) 1992, (9) Love Rock, (10) Hopscotch, (11) Tidal Wave, (12) For The City, (13) IDK

Personnel: Fly Anakin  (guest MC on “For The City”), Morgan Burrs (guitar), Corey Fonville (drums), DJ Harrison (production, keyboards), Andrew Randazzo (bass), Marcus “Tennishu” Tenney (MC, trumpet, saxophones).