Confession time: I came late to the letlive. party. So late, in fact, that the band were just about to call it a day when I decided that they were, you know, more than just pretty good. Yes, that kind of late. Despite the break-up, and whatever the reasons and rationales behind it, you always had a sense that an artist as talented and inquisitive as Jason Aalon Butler would soon return to the music scene in some form or another. And so it has proven with Fever 333, his latest project and passion.
Following on from Made An America, their never less than intriguing EP, and a series of live shows – or “demonstrations” as the band would have it – a new year starts with a proper, full-length album. Strength In Numb333rs (Roadrunner/333 Wreckords) is a veritable smorgasbord of musical styles and influences, effortlessly embracing Rock, Hip-Hop, Pop, Hardcore and Punk. That such diversity works and, for the most part, works effortlessly, is testimony to the creative fecundity at work in Butler’s mind. This is a record in a hurry: it’s the aural equivalent of being grabbed by the lapels by a stranger in the street and being shown just how bad things are but how they could also, equally, be different and better.
But much nicer, obviously.
Butler clearly has an agenda: this is an album angry at the state of the world. It is also clear and intentional call to arms. Comparisons to Rage Against The Machine and their revolutionary political rock will doubtless follow. Whilst Butler might share their enthusiasm for systemic political change, musically, the album has a much broader palette than RATM.
Consider, for example, the Hip-Hop balladry of the seven-minute, personal reflection tales of his childhood ‘Inglewood’ or the straight up incendiary rock of ‘Burn It’; whilst stylistically quite different, they represent Butler’s search for truth and his belief in the collective power of community to improve and make things better. Before you think this sounds like attending a hectoring, undergraduate lecture, think again: this is energizing and hugely diverting music with big choruses, memorable tunes and enough ideas to silent even the most cynical of critics.
‘Animal’ arrives as a fully formed live classic-in-waiting; it is all enormous beats and crushing riffs that do that-hairs-standing-up-on-the-back-of-the-neck thing that only the best tunes do. ‘One Of Us’ has that casual familiarity that breeds content, its chorus of “Stand up, Or die on your knees” a ferocious clarion call to resistance and to make change. ‘The Innocent’ is more infectious than a winter cold and emblematic of Butler’s agenda writ large: people will listen to your message when you give them something brilliant to listen to.
At the start of a new year, one needs a jolt, a kick in the proverbial pants to sustain one’s optimism that things can and must be better. With that context in mind, the energy and passion that is tattooed through Strength In Numb333rs seems utterly vital and essential.
8 / 10
MAT DAVIES