THE BUTTERFLIES OF LOVE Wintertime Queen
BY THE time the second verse begins to unravel, it's obvious this band's honeyed monicker is just a smokescreen. A million miles away from sappiness, the Butterflies of Love plumb emotional depths in ways reminiscent of Leonard Cohen, and come up with gems of songwriting genius gorgeous enough to make them stand out in a week full of worthy releases. It's a long, hard slog to carve your niche as a singer-songwriter these days. On one hand there's the machismo of Noel, Stereophonics et al to contend with; on the other, the epic, drama-queen symphonies of the Radiohead brigade. The Butterflies of Love have managed to forge out a sound of their own, though, with a spectrum of emotional colour that shifts from dewy-eyed soulfulness to airy romanticism in a breath. The Butterflies - aka brothers Daniel and Jeffrey Greene - hail from the sleepy suburban town of New Haven, Connecticut, and they draw on the same American songwriting traditions as fellow suburban exiles the Radar Bros and Wheat. Last year's debut, How to Know the Butterflies of Love, was a Neil Young-esque rhapsody on small-town disappointment, each track dripping with Daniel's soulful vocals and Jeffrey's fragile harmonies. And Wintertime Queen is similarly heartfelt fare: strung out with an emotional delicacy that tugs on the heart and makes you want to hear it over and over. Balancing spooky melodies against harmonica and harmonised vocals, it evokes a world of picket-fenced nostalgia and romance, underpinned by a yearning sadness. If you've a yen for sweet soul music, salvation lies this way. The london times.

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