An anthology of songs by the revered Glasgow band Butcher Boy - originally released between 2007 and 2017 - You Had A Kind Face is the tenth release on the acclaimed Needle Mythology label. 

 

The album has been mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road and features sleeve notes by author John Niven.

 

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Butcher Boy released three albums of literate, melodic pop songs, none of which were released on vinyl, before returning in 2017 for a stand-alone EP Bad Things Happen When It’s Quiet. Gathering together songs from all of these releases, CD copies also come with a download card for three songs including the single Dear John.. 

 

Long-time fan of Butcher Boy, the author John Niven has written a devastatingly beautiful complement to the songs on You Had A Kind Face drawn from his own early memories of pacing the same Irvine streets where the band’s songwriterm John Blain Hunt spent his formative years. The images used for this anthology are all taken from a series of 1979 photographs by John Walmsley capturing the new town landscape of Wester Hailes in South-East Edinburgh. Now in his 70s, Walmsley was so taken with Butcher Boy’s music that he assented to the use of previously unseen photographs for You Had A Kind Face.

 

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For Needle Mythology founder Pete Paphides, the release of You Had A Kind Face is the culmination of a love affair that began back in April 2009, when Butcher Boy’s second album React Or Die was about to come out.

 

“It was as close to an out-of-body experience as I’ve had listening to music in my adult life,” he recalls. “I was working for The Times back then, I called my editor on Monday morning and told her that we had to make this our album of the week. And the other thing I remember was that I was so nervous writing my review, the way you would be nervous writing a letter declaring your feelings for someone with whom you had fallen in love. Because I had."