Six Years in the Making: London Post-Rock Band Butch Kassidy Release Debut Album ANNA
London post-rock five-piece Butch Kassidy have released their debut album ANNA, a 66-minute record that took six years to write, refine and finally record. The songs had previously circulated only in fragments — played live in London's underground venues or leaked onto streaming platforms — before the band pulled it all together. Far Out Magazine has given the album a four-star review.
What was announced
Butch Kassidy operate without a record label or management team. The band funded and built ANNA purely off the resources they accumulated from live shows, waiting until they could record the album the way they originally envisioned it. The title is a palindrome, echoing the record's cyclical structure. Drummer Aron Murphy said the band simply didn't have the means to make the record they wanted early on, so they kept playing shows until they could pull it off independently.
Inside the tracklist
The band describes the album as "a rollercoaster of tension and release," built on loud-quiet-loud dynamics, slow heavy melodies against jagged, driving guitar, with lyrics scattered throughout.
- "Sonsuza" — singled out by Far Out Magazine as the album's standout track. Bassist Lev Ceylan said the lyrics mirror the song's looping structure and clock-like tom patterns, aiming to capture a sense of timelessness and infinity; the track also features a choir singing in Turkish.
- "Heath 26" — a 2021 version had already built a following in niche circles; this is a re-recorded version five years on, denser in arrangement and twice the length.
- "Light" — moves from a whispered opening into an explosive passage, with marching drums and guitar work forming a krautrock section influenced by Osees.
- "Sunning" — a piano-led, lyrical passage.
- "Killakee" — carries death metal shading.
- "Dash River Pines" — the album's cinematic closer.
Six years of independent grinding
Over the years, Butch Kassidy have headlined multiple one-day festivals in East London and shared bills with bdrmm, Fat Dog, and Mary in the Junkyard. The album's visuals are built from film photography the band shot themselves, with imagery rolled out track by track on their social accounts. In its review, Far Out Magazine compared ANNA to a mirror image of Slint's Spiderland.