Will Butler - Policy

Unsurprisingly, for a man who seemingly has some deficiencies when it comes to attention span, Policy is a record which freewheels through a number of genres but manages to avoid sounding like a collection of songs that we deemed not good enough for Arcade Fire. Butler has admitted that he had to make this record before he ran out of time to commit to it, and by packing so many styles in under thirty minutes Policy does sound like someone aware they are running out of time to make their mark.

Policy also sounds like a step into the darkness for Will Butler as he confronts God, the problems of the world today, money and his own life. These are eight songs that expose Butler’s innermost worries away from the safety of fellow band members, giant heads and everything else that comes with Arcade Fire’s grandstanding. Policy begins with the confrontational rockabilly of “Take My Side”, with Butler questioning a friend over whether or not they will stand by him: “What’s the difference if I’m wrong? / Keep on acting, we’ll never get along” he sings, suggesting that he doesn’t have the answers as he takes a leap into the unknown, happy to go solo if he’s not backed up. “Anna” finds Butler fixed with a dose of realism as the titular woman heads off to work leaving “all the dreamers with the dead”, sound tracked by some tightly wound dark synth pop that’s got more than a little of Talking Heads’ early neuroses in its pulsing intensity. This worry over the more tangible things in life expands out of control in the terrific cacophonous funk of “Something’s Coming” where Butler yells “look out, look out!” before the menacing chorus finds him chanting “something’s coming / oh, is it the end? / something’s coming / I don’t know / but it sure as hell ain’t the beginning”. The Lord is watching, and it’s making Butler hella uneasy.

For all the agitation – on record and when Butler is on stage – the best moments on Policy are the quiet ones which reveal Butler to be a bit of a balladeer. “Finish What I Started” is a lush Lennon/Nilsson-style waltz, all flat drums and mournful piano chords perfectly matching the singer’s mistrust of his abilities (“I tried my best / but my best was half-hearted”), and “Sing To Me” is a gorgeous, sleepy lullaby which finds Butler on the verge of giving up, scared of what’s on the other side of whatever he’s going through. It’s another song on Policy that hints at broken friendships and loneliness; while Butler has touched on the big issues in some other songs (and more often than not with Arcade Fire) he’s at his best when singing about the personal, not the political.

Although the sometimes scattergun approach to genre-hopping has its drawbacks, what’s great about Policy is the future possibilities it allows Will Butler. We don’t know what he’ll do next (I’d love an album of piano ballads, please, rather than a song a day inspired by Guardian news stories), he might not know what’s next…and that’s quite an exciting prospect.