Dead Reckoning

It helps that the production, rather than being hushed or atmospheric, is viciously sharp, full of punch-drunk drums and the stinging twang of strings.

The contrasts of light/dark, father/son and sinners/saints never sounded so danceable. [Mar 2011, p.92]

Beyond the elaborate prose, the songs are outstanding and full of an energy that combines careful technique with rousing jams. Dead Reckoning is a unique and wild experience, one that's not to be passed up.

The album can simply be described as a great band supporting quality lyrics, served up as organically as possible.

Yes, the hellfires still burn, and the hearts are still black, and the end is ever nigh. But this time the songs are infused with a contemporary heartache that sounds far closer to 2011 than to the 1931 Depression-era vibe the band typically evokes.

Sometimes the fervor gets to be too much for them: the grating but mercifully brief "Blood for You" is little more than the junkyard clang of the rhythm section and Sollee's stuck-pig shout, and the verses "Cradle on Fire" seem to get away from Sollee, who loses the melody somewhere in the back of his throat. But there's few moments when they don't seem to be throwing everything they've got into these performances, and that furious intensity drives them past both rough patches and easy comparisons.

It's hard not to draw parallels to the Decemberists--fellow Portland residents whose frontman, Colin Meloy, shares a strikingly similar voice with frontman Ryan Sollee--but Dead Reckoning is further proof that the Builders and Butchers are building their own identity.