Grand National

Performer: The John Butler Trio
Engineer: George Nikoloudis; Mario Caldato, Jr.; Robin Mai
Producer: Shannon Birchall; John Butler; Mario Caldato, Jr.; Michael Barker
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Composer: Shannon Birchall. Personnel: Danielle Caruana (vocals, chant, background vocals); Jessie Goninon, Stacia Goninon, Nicky Bomba (vocals, chant); John Butler (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lap steel guitar, resonator guitar, nylon-string guitar, banjo, ukulele, harmonica); Vika Bull (vocals, background vocals); Shannon Birchall (violin, double bass, bass guitar, background vocals); Stephanie Thom, Aaron Barndon, Janette Mason, Charlotte Armstrong, Sue Simpson, Andrea Keeble (violin); Erikki Veltheim (viola); Helen Mountford (cello); Eugene Ball (trumpet); Michael Caruana (piano, Wurlitzer organ); Jex Saarelaht (piano); Michael Barker (vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, drums, congas, bongos, claves, cowbells, kalimba, shaker, tambourine, timbales, timpani, tubular bells, vibraslap, crotales, background vocals); Ray Pereira (talking drum); Bobby Singh (tabla); Chad Hedley (turntables); Linda Bull (background vocals). Audio Mixers: John Butler; Mario Caldato, Jr.; Robin Mai. Recording information: Sing sing Studios, Melbourne, Australia; Woodstock Studio, Melbourne, Australia. Photographers: Martin Philbey; Angelo Kehagias; Tom Walker; James Minchin. Unknown Contributor Role: Michael Barker. Fremantle-based vocalist/guitarist John Butler is Australia's answer to jam-oriented singer-songwriters such as Dave Matthews and Ben Harper. Butler leads his tight ensemble through an impressive set of folk-tinged rock on 2007's GRAND NATIONAL. Featuring bold, organic production by Mario Caldato, Jr. (the Beastie Boys, Beck), the album showcases the rhythmic mastery of bassist Shannon Birchall and drummer Michael Barker, while fully spotlighting Butler's amiable vocals and deft work on acoustic and electric guitars and other stringed instruments. Highlights of the immediately engaging record include the exuberant "Better Than" and the fast-paced "Funky Tonight." Those looking for another earnest and emotive jam-band hero will find him here. It's been a few years now since John Butler and his trio first cracked the American market, but he's never had quite the same success in the U.S. as he has had in Australia, his father's homeland, and his own residence for the past 20-odd years. Butler, however, should feel confident that he can hold his own against any of the Dave Matthewses, Ben Harpers, or John Mayers (all three of whom he can be easily compared to) out there. He's playing pop music, with all the sentimental, occasionally trite lyrics and clean major chord phrasing that accompany that style, but it's pop music done well, with impressive musicianship from Butler (on banjo, lapsteel, and acoustic and electric guitar), percussionist Michael Barker, and bassist Shannon Birchall. Nearly every song on Grand National features at least one instrumental solo, the kind that rolls and sings and grooves and would make Robert Randolph proud, moving close to jam band territory without immersing itself fully in it (only one song, "Gov Did Nothin'," reaches far past the four- or five-minute mark, much in part thanks to a great New Orleans-styled brass band that plays the piece out to a close, and is worth every second). His willingness to explore other genres besides bluesy folk pop -- reggae in "Groovin' Slowly," hip-hop in "Daniella," and modern rock in "Devil Running" -- certainly adds a nice diversity to the album, but unfortunately this talent is double-edged, as it also becomes the album's greatest flaw. Butler often tries to encompass too much, to do too much, and because of this, comes off sounding a little corny (in the aforementioned "Daniella," for example, which is more embarrassing than anything else), truncating words in a weird Dave Matthews-meets-Adam Sandler kind of way that's too forced and unnatural to sit well. And though it's nice to hear, in "Funky Tonight," for example, that he doesn't take himself too seriously, his simple rhymes and delivery are a bit too silly when they're about love and dancing. When he uses them in his socially and politically oriented pieces, however ("And with God on both sides/If death is justified/Whatever the name/Then we're all to blame," he sings on "Fire in the Sky"), they ring more truly, or at least more originally. But what Butler does best -- writing and performing well-crafted pop songs, and sounding like he's having fun all the while -- is good, and though Grand National still may not be his entry up the Billboard charts, it's a welcome entry nonetheless. ~ Marisa Brown

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