Shades of the Felice Brothers

From the files:

"The Builders and the Butchers initially turned heads with their immersive performance style--employing singing in the round sans mic, recruiting the crowd as back-up vocalists, traipsing off into the street in the middle of the closing song. But shorn of the theatrics, the band's music easily holds its own. The record traces the course of a traditional Butchers set, from stripped-down crowd-grabbing opener `The Night, Pt. 1' to lovely sing-along gospel closer `Find Me in the Air.' In under a year, the band's gone from Mississippi Pizza party band to Crystal Ballroom opener, and this album shows why." -- Willamette Week (Best Local Albums of 2007) "A brand of dark folk with intense vocals and an instrumental setup that is all over the map--strings, banjo, washboard, tambourines, mandolin, etc. are in the mix, along with the traditional guitar and drums." -- Cable and Tweed "Their music harkens back to a time of great wide open western coastal state expansion. There's more of a gospel/Tom Waits feel to it all, though, and under the dark folk stories, there's lots of banjo, washboard, and fiddle. It blends to create gothic Americana-folk-rock with a little more `umph!' than your average Decemberists song." -- My Old Kentucky

Alaskan native and fish biologist Ryan Sollee started the Builders as a funeral songwriting project. The resulting album is a Tom Waits-ian, gospel-infused, call-and-response rave-up of despair. Legendary live shows have solidified the group as the best new up & coming band in Portland.