The Builders and The Butchers

The Builders went into the studio with the idea of peeling back layers to where the essence of the song lies, and to try and finally fully encapsulate their raucous, impassioned live show. Joining up with studio mates Adam Selzer (The Decemberists, M. Ward, She & Him), and Dylan Magierek (Mark Kozelek, Starf*cker, Thao Nguyen), the band created Dead Reckoning using the recording style of the 1950s and 1960s, where the magic of a song was captured by the band playing together live with minimal overdubbing.

A dead reckoning is an age-old method of sea navigation that involves using past position, speed, and drift to calculate current and future location. Dead Reckoning, with its timeless sound, is a measure of where the band and its music, as well as these times in which we live, have been, are now, and where it all might be going. “I thought it would be a perfect title for the album given its stripped down sound, and how most of these songs tell stories, many of which are set in the past, “ says singer Ryan Sollee.

“The Builders And The Butchers' musical output is something of a Pentecostal throw-down—the musical underpinnings are reminiscent of bluegrass, but the performances are raw and unschooled, with Sollee in particular throwing off a maniacally ecclesiastical sort of energy…dark, sparkling, Leadbelly-like terrain covered by death-fixated epics…” – PasteMagazine.com