New Damaged Goods signings Butcher Boy release their third album "Helping Hands", a single "Imperial" will be out on limited 7".

Their first two albums were released on the well respected London indie label 'How Does It Feel To Be Loved' run by ex-Melody Maker journo Ian Watson.

Butcher Boy has existed in its current form since early 2005, but lead singer John Blain Hunt has played in various incarnations of the band since the late 1990s.

Initially, Butcher Boy didn't have any songs; John was a resolute left-hander and could barely play guitar.

But he enjoyed sending anonymous poetry to local papers under the guise of Butcher Boy in the hope of engaging the writers through their columns.

Butcher Boy was about books by George Orwell and Charles Schulz. it was about films by Bill Douglas and Robert Bresson.

it was about records by Vince Guaraldi and The Smiths. Butcher Boy was about an imaginary world of woods and darkness and absolute, precise beauty.

About power-cuts and candles. But Butcher Boy wasn't really about songs. It was a little bit of sparkle between sickness and the dole.

Their debut album, "Profit In Your Poetry",was release in 2007 to a slew of positive reviews.

"Inspired by monochrome movies and bleak winters, these cello-and-viola-flecked songs transcend their Smiths, Tindersticks and Felt influences.

Regret, giro-funded couplets, sensual ambiguity - it's all here, resurrecting a great British genre," declared Uncut.

"It's an album of immense subtlety and depth, the kind of record you can listen to fifty times and still discover hidden treasures on that fifty first spin," said Drowned In Sound.

"Butcher Boy operate not so much, as has been widely suggested, in the shadow of The Smiths as in the company of Tindersticks, Pulp and Lloyd Cole And The Commotions.

Theirs is a literate, bohemian music nourished by the darker strains of Sixties chart pop," added Mail On Sunday.

2009 saw the release of "React Or Die" in April, preceded by a single, "A Better Ghost".

2011 sees the band sign to Damaged Goods and will release their third album "Helping Hands' later this year.

Butcher Boy can only write from the heart. Butcher Boy has resolute faith in pop music and pop records.

And Butcher Boy finds solace knowing that cynicism and irony have no part in what they try to do.