This must have been a highly anticipated album for all the band’s devotees. You see this is the first album for Mushroomhead after a decade which features vocalist Jason “J Mann” Popson, and also the first album without Pig Benis on bass, Gravy on guitar and Li’l Dan on percussion. The newcomers are: Dr. F on bass, Church on guitar & Roberto Diablo on percussion. This album is also dedicated to both original guitarist John “JJ Righteous” Sekula and the drummer’s wife, Steve “Skinny” Felton, Vanessa Solowlow who passed away in 2010 and 2013 respectively.
As you guess the album’s title hasn’t been used randomly and the music has a deep, esoteric meaning. Four years after “Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children”, Mushroomhead return with a very strong album which blends the band’s favorite music genres; industrial metal, nu-metal, modern metal, alternative, rock & electro-rock music harmonically and elegantly. The superb production was delivered by the drummer Steve Felton and longtime partner & producer Bill Korecky (Incantation, Acheron, Trouble, etc.).
Mushroomhead is a very “weird yet unique” band who’s been around for over 20 years now… so they have nothing to prove anymore. Damn they do so. “The Righteous & the Butterfly” can be blamed for many things, by the usual haters, but not for one thing…. its diversity. There are tracks here for all the tastes and for all the hours of the day. Mellow, heavy & modern, industrial, nu-metal, electro-rock ones and so forth. The tracks: “Our Apologies”, “How Many Times”, “Qwerty” “Portraits of the Poor”, “Childlike” (which features Just Mic of 10.000 Cadillacs), “This Cold Reign”, “We Are the Truth” (which features the sexy Jackie Laponza of Unsaid Fate), “Worlds Collide” & “Out of My Mind” will appeal even to their non-loyal followers.
I won’t start telling if this is the band’s top album to date or such cliché things – I’ll leave that for the “actual music experts” who know everything! All I can say is that “The Righteous & the Butterfly” is a great album which it will be also relished by those who are not so much into this kind of music… let alone the band fans and the specific genre aficionados… they will embrace it for sure!
