First posted on seroword.com
Arcade Fire’s Will Butler offers up his debut solo album effort ‘Policy’. For this debut effort, Butler presents a quintessential indie-rock experience, pushed along by Butler’s own viewpoints presented in his lyrics. There’s a nice effort being pushed out by Butler for his debut album, featuring enjoyable tracks with a certain anthemic quality. Butler’s solo style works well for his first album, allowing him to command the scene with great confidence, presenting an effort that ties in easily with his earlier work in Arcade Fire, though also featuring some new elements that separate the whole experience into something new.
‘Policy’ comes across as a loud and anthemic indie-rock experience, almost traditional in format and tone, though ultimately exciting and raucous in places. Butler utilizes some nice ideas on his solo record, throwing some rather odd ideas into the mix that somehow work, forming the basis of accessible and incredibly enjoyable tracks. Butler’s themes of growing up and the peculiarity of teenage life work nicely as an overarching theme for the album, tie-ing together each of the songs in a cohesive manner. Everything seems to work well on ‘Policy’, with it being an enjoyable and rather strong album experience.
Whilst Butler seems to offer up a lot of himself for his debut effort, it seems that there’s a few traits bringing down some level of quality on ‘Policy’. Whilst there’s a sense of enjoyable indie-rock on the album, Butler doesn’t seem to really add all that much to the genre, or arguably even enough of himself, to really make the album stand out with its own respective strengths. Everything works well in its own right, though there’s a sense that Butler could perhaps be doing just that little bit more. On top of everything else is how short ‘Policy’ actually is, which ends up ending just as soon as it starts to get going.
There’s a few poor elements here and there, though the overall impact of the album itself is quite nice, and one that showcases Butler’s talents in a nice and enjoyable way. Each song offers up something fun and enjoyable, with there being very few weak tracks on the album, perhaps indicating a strength to the short album run-time. Overall, ‘Policy’ is a rather strong effort, and one that should certainly please fans of Arcade Fire’s output. Butler has some nice ideas he presents on ‘Policy’, many of which he’s managed to push out in a strong and cohesive manner, making his debut effort a strong and easily enjoyable one.
Album Rating:
- ★★★★☆ 4/5
Selected Songs:
- Take My Side
- Son Of God
- Something’s Coming
- What I Want
Will Butler’s debut solo album ‘Policy’ is out now.
The CD Critic 