butterflyfish review
Hip, hip, hooray! SALT's house band, "Butterflyfish," is still getting great reviews! Check out this super sweet review from Stefan Shepherd of Zooglobble. Stefan is a kid's music connoisseur and children's-music-reviewer-extraordinaire for NPR and Real Simple.
So, without further adieu, here's the review:
Butterflyfish is the trio of Matthew Myer Boulton, Elizabeth Myer Boulton, and Zoë Krohne who draw inspiration from the music of Dan Zanes and Elizabeth Mitchell in putting together a set of mostly original music celebrating God and faith. Compared to many of the albums on this list, there are probably more songs that explicitly reference God on their two albums, 2009's Ladybug and 2010's Great and Small. But the musical setting of homespun bluegrass and folk (mostly provided by multi-instrumentalist Zachariah Hickman on the first album and from a quartet of folks including Mark Erelli on the latter) and the gentle lyrics from Matthew Myer Boulton don't trigger my interior Preach Alert System. If I had to pick an album for the newcomer to spin, I'd go with the latter Great and Small, which features some fine songs, like the title track or "You Be You." You can listen to samples from both albums here. Butterflyfish takes a Dan Zanes approach to kids music -- this is as much "family music" (consciously so) as it is "kids music." As they sing, on "The Old Familiar," about old hymns, "those harmonies kept me from harm." Both albums are recommended for fans of Zanes and Mitchell who probably already subscribe to the view that singing is a force for good in the world and won't mind a Christian spin on that notion.
To read more and to find out about other great family music with soul, click here. To listen to or to buy (wink, wink, nudge, nudge - everyone has to make a living!) some of our music, click here.