Athron - Taming Butterflies (Album)
Athron’s debut solo album, Taming Butterflies provides a sweet soundtrack of lush, acoustic music allowing a listener to relax, sit back and enjoy. At the same time, as the title suggests, the songs also combine varying parts that contrast each other to make a veritable assortment of poignant and honest music written straight from the heart of the songwriter.
Track “Brother To Sleep” offers some dark lyrics about laying one’s brother to rest alone, as we all must inevitably do someday. This song of loss with bleak lyrics is countered by sweet, vocal harmonies reminiscent of that found on records by Crosby, Stills and Nash. Moreover, the composition also shares some similarities with Josh Pyke’s “Goldmines.” Religion is also a topic of interest in this elegy, as Athron emphasises that it is “funny how we talk the most about the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”
Meanwhile, “Child Overdue” utilises the same lyrical style of vague imagery and beautiful musings, frequently underlying the music penned by Neil Finn. Overall this provides for an interesting tune as the singer adopts maternalistic qualities and concludes that, “history swelled up inside me” and he likens it to a “child overdue.” The question you may be asking is what is the child tardy for. However, this is left unanswered and for the listeners to attach their own meaning.
Song “Mankind” is a moody number. As Athron wills the listener to “follow the ghost,” one does not need to exert too much effort to see the apparition singing in the background and floating over the acoustic music, as Athron continues to evoke the same harmonious style of CSN once again.
Track, “Follow The Gold” combines the ambience of Youth Group’s “Lillian Lies,” while offsetting the saccharine pleasantness of the music with more dim images that would typically be found on a Radiohead album.
Finally, “Collection Of A Surprise” concedes that mistakes have been made and even relays the harm caused by one person who cut their face on a barbed wire fence. But don’t let the lyrics fool you, because while they initially may sound like something an “emo” band may sing about, in actual fact, the vocals and music are more likely to have been lifted from a Neil Young songbook.
In sum, Athron’s Taming Butterflies is a nice blend of emotive songs that propels the listener through deep contrasts, such as from darkness to light, from whispers to choirs of harmonies and from simple chords to rich layers of colour.
