Biography
"Highly addictive once the poison sets… Avenpitch is extraordinary."
-Aiding & Abetting
Where Avenpitch's self-titled debut stabbed a thrash-metal knife through the heart of New Wave, the band's follow-up LP, Butterfly Radio (Omega Point Records), breaks out the chainsaw. Anchored by its unforgettable title track, Butterfly Radio finds Avenpitch moving even farther towards both extremes. Guitars and synthesizers push recklessly into the red, as if the band were trying to blow a fuse or crash their hard drive, yet the songwriting remains laser-focused, with every hook and shout-along chorus precisely arranged for maximum pop effect. Had the Sex Pistols grown up listening to the Happy Mondays and New Order, instead of the other way around, Butterfly Radio could very well be the result.
The opening bars of "A Safer Car" set the agenda for the album, with a raspy guitar and glitchy synthesizer bashing out a hum-able melody in unison. But it's on the second track, "Jack the Idiot Dance", that the album really shifts into high gear - originally composed for a compilation of children's music released in Germany (perhaps the only country where parents would pummel their toddlers with warp-speed disco-metal), the track starts off with some deceptively innocuous toy sounds before the melody stomps in like a Godzilla-sized jack-in-the-box. "Butterfly Radio", the title cut, creeps along with nervously plucked strings and what sounds like a legion of marching boots, the tension building until the chorus detonates into a maelstrom of guitars.
Though still very much the brainchild of singer/guitarist/producer Todd Millenacker, Butterfly Radio sees Avenpitch evolving from a studio project into a proper band. Having survived a tour of some of the country's rougher dive bars and dirtier punk rock hangouts in support of the first album, Millenacker, guitarist Darren Siaw and drummer Paul Hudalla returned to the studio a tight, battle-tested rock n' roll machine. With the addition of keyboardist Sarah France, they have infused their new material with the manic energy and bruising volume of their stage shows.
With several tours planned for 2006 and growing support on podcasts and college radio, Avenpitch's signal is reaching more listeners than ever. If you've ever wished that The Killers had a bit more balls, or that Mindless Self Indulgence had a bit more brains, or are just looking for a furious new sound to shock you out of your 21st-century malaise, then it's worth tuning into Butterfly Radio.
-written by Emil Hyde
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
