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San Antonio art-pop band Buttercup\u2019s newest album is its 10th. Credit: Andrew Sherman<\/p>\nSan Antonio art-pop band Buttercup\u2019s newest album is its 10th. Credit: Andrew Sherman<\/p>\n
A popular yarn about Vincent Van Gogh comprises the heart of Buttercup\u2019s 18-song new album Send More Yellow, which the band will celebrate with a Friday, March 6, album-release show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That tale about the Dutch late-impressionist painter also supplies the release\u2019s title.<\/p>\n
In a later-life fit of obsession, inspiration and depression, the famously troubled artist wrote feverish letters to his family, begging them to \u201csend more yellow\u201d paint. He was madly desirous to lose himself in ever more sunflowers and grain fields, or so the story goes.<\/p>\n
In the hands of the beloved San Antonio band, frequently and aptly described as a life-affirming art-rock project, \u201csend more yellow\u201d becomes a kind of embrace of how much we need each other, how much it aches to be so in love with such a flawed world and how much power art gives us to endlessly remake ourselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With this album, the band\u2019s 10th since its founding nearly 25 years ago, Buttercup has achieved a difficult combination. It\u2019s delivered its most cohesive recorded statement, both musically and conceptually, and also offered up at least two or three of its absolute best songs to date.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s three core members, Joe Reyes, odie., and ringleader Erik Sanden, have only gotten better at inhabiting Buttercup, which will play its release show at the Charline McCombs Empire Theatre with Heavy Love and Deathray Davies also on the bill. <\/p>\n
At a recent listening party for the album, bassist odie., responding to a question about the secret to Buttercup\u2019s fruitful collaboration, summed things up in a sagely manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re like the Spurs,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause nobody cares who takes the shot and we all love each other.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The album opener, \u201cAngel Dust,\u201d sets the tone by establishing joy in the face of adversity, not as a defense mechanism but as a core value.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The chorus on the disco-esque track echoes a criticism familiar to musicians who speak out on social issues, \u201cshut up and sing,\u201d but in context the phrase becomes an empowering exhortation to be your full self as an act of defiance. It\u2019s the most danceable song in Buttercup\u2019s catalog by far.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The second track, \u201cUncle John,\u201d delves into Send More Yellow\u2019s most common theme: loss. Written for singer-guitarist Sanden\u2019s late uncle, the song is a folk-rock rollick with lyrics that dwell on the ways in which the spirit can linger through death.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Sanden sings of a heart that \u201cain\u2019t full yet,\u201d he reminds himself and the listener that loss is never an excuse to shy away from love. As in other moments on this album, joy and pain exist together easily here \u2014\u00a0and in a way that posits them not as opposing forces but as both a part of something much grander than duality.<\/p>\n
Another standout, \u201cTexas Sun, Furious Sun,\u201d saunters along, sitting sonically somewhere between R&B and a hypnagogic flavor of punk, taking aim at the climate crisis and those who drive it before turning introspective and, once again, offering a kind of mantra: \u201cWe must focus on what matters, we must check what\u2019s in our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease Send Help,\u201d a sad folk-pop song Sanden wrote for odie. in a moment of profound crisis, returns to the theme of loss. This one carries a more despondent edge, but it\u2019s still twinged with the belief that the love of other humans can carry us through.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt so hurt for my friend, but so powerless to really do anything but be there,\u201d Sanden told the Current of the song\u2019s inspiration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For its first ever recoded cover, Buttercup offers up a slow and somehow sensual take on the Dead Kennedys\u2019 classic \u201cLet\u2019s Lynch the Landlord,\u201d a song that deepens the album\u2019s preoccupation with the path to a better world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t usually get political,\u201d Sanden told the listening party when discussing the cover, \u201cbut it just seems like the right time for this song.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThink of the billionaires,\u201d guitarist Reyes smirked, shaking his head.<\/p>\n
Other album standouts include \u201cColiseum,\u201d a gorgeous, patient tune with motorik-nodding percussion that ponders permanence from the perspective of instant gratification, and \u201cWhat a Mess,\u201d a striking and dramatic song that lurches and lingers and leers lovingly at life lived large and loose. The meaning\u2019s in the mess, it seems to posit.<\/p>\n
In many ways, \u201cZero Control,\u201d the final track, is a distillation of the whole effort. Anchored by ambling, samba-flavored percussion and gentle guitar, the song looks again at real moments of loss from the life of the band.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here, Sanden emerges from his encounter with powerlessness and the indifferent universe with a changed perspective. And, when he repeatedly sings \u201cI have zero control,\u201d the delicate beauty, the imperfect pride in his voice is enough to induce tears. It becomes a mantra for liberation, not a complaint.<\/p>\n
Sanden said the song was partially inspired by the experience of performing at the bedside of late great San Antonio artist Katie Pell as she prepared for her transition beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the thought that maybe all the years of trying to make music were just so I could play those songs for Katie,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
$30, 8 p.m. Friday, March 6, Charline McCombs Empire Theatre, 226 N. St. Mary\u2019s St., (210) 226-5700, majesticempire.com.<\/p>\n
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