You have heard this before, I assure you.
‘Butterfly’ is released as a prelude to the Wire Daisies’ forthcoming album ‘Just Another Day’. After tasting success with their digitally released EP ‘Make Everything Change’, which made it into the Top 30 of the download chart, the Cornish foursome hope to make an impact with these releases.
Despite being a well-constructed and beautiful song, ‘Butterfly’ seems to lack the certain something that nudges one melancholy alt.pop track above another. There’s no doubt that it’s all there, and all that’s there is good; Treana Morris’ vocals sway perfectly over the yearning soundscape created by the rest of the band and all is held together with rhythm provided by an acoustic guitar and percussion. Although I am relatively sure that I have never heard this song before, my ears assure me that there is a familiarity about it. It seems to me that there must be a book somewhere entitled ‘The Melancholy Pop Song’, and contained within its pages are the instructions to writing a song such as this. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it; it just isn’t anything out of the ordinary. From its acoustic-guitar-and-voice introduction; through its melodically-varied, passionate second verse; through its swooping instrumental, punctuated with Morris’ ‘Yeeaah’s; all the way to its fade-out ending; it’s easy to assume that you have heard this song on the radio. Perhaps this is just radio-friendly mixing in effect again, if they can make Damien Rice sound as if he’s smiling while singing ‘Cannonball’ I’m sure they could have taken the musical clichés too far here as well… In actuality, this is partly true; the sounds underneath the vocals in the Album Version take longer to appear in their entirety than in the Radio Edit. The effect of this is for the music (disregarding the vocal melody now) to retain a guitar-led feel for longer. The Album Version also forsakes the fade out of the Radio Edit in favour of winding down more slowly before gently blowing away on the breeze.
Having said that, the chorus melody (‘Hold me like a butterfly’) is unexpectedly infectious. I must admit that I found myself humming it on the bus. For a song so obviously laced with sorrow, you will drift from the introduction to the chorus and into the second verse before realizing that ‘Butterfly’ is strangely uplifting in a similar way to that of Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’.
Perhaps familiarity isn’t such a bad thing. ‘Butterfly’ is a well-produced track, with a polyphony that makes to create a pretty guitar-pop tune that, I can guarantee, will embed itself in your mind, despite your best efforts to prevent this happening.