The Birthday Massacre – Pathways
Canadian band The Birthday Massacre, who have been delivering their highly individualistic brand of dark-pop (with liberal splashes of gothic & electro rock) for 25 years, have been in fine form of late.
Under Your Spell (2017), Diamonds (2020) and the Billboard charting Fascination (2022) are all worthy of attention, but new album Pathways is their strongest offering since breakout album Violet back in 2005.
Not that there’s any particular deviation from the tried & tested Birthday Massacre formula, but for Pathways the band – Sara "Chibi" (lead vocals), Michael Rainbow (guitars, programming, vocals), Michael Falcore (lead guitar), Phillip Elliott (drums), Owen Mackinder (keys), Brett Carruthers (bass) – have incorporated a bigger and bolder use of dynamics, as well as stretching their musical boundaries of light and shade.
Those dynamics are evident from the get-go and album opener 'Sleep Tonight.'
The song's title, however, is something you aren’t likely to get much of with the heavyweight industrial riffage that introduces the song and permeates throughout the pulsating number, giving way only for the dreamier verses and an atmospheric chorus.
The synth-backed electro-metal of 'All Of You' is another that shifts from dark riffage to lighter, slightly eery verse passages; there’s also a short, ethereal breakdown that builds back up to the metal-edged attack of the song’s opening.
As Chibi forlornly sings, it may be "a love forgotten," but it’s a memorable, sonically impacting song.
The downtempo 'The Vanishing Game' is a great example of the band’s goth-gilded dark-pop; full of lush synths, a strong vocal melody and a great chorus, it sits as a highlight of the album.
The title track, which follows, is an up-tempo with heavy Euro-pop sensibilities, albeit here with a grittier, new wave vibe.
'Whisper,' like 'The Vanishing Game,' is a downtempo goth ballad, but here the guitars dominate over the synth-backing to add an intense edge, as do the ghoul like, vocal interjections ("Take your last breath so I can sleep, tell me that you'll weep for me").
Contrast then comes by way of the electro-pop shaped 'Wish,' the album’s synth-bubbling, radio friendly moment.
The Pathways trait of dynamic light and shade returns with 'Faces,' a highly charged darkwave number that flits from soft, melodic and lyrically bleak verses ("I fall asleep before I close my eyes, the scars of all that’s left behind") to nu-metal power-riffage.
The album closes on atmospheric ballad 'Cruel Love,' where power chords and synth textures give way to delicately sung verses and a dual voiced, harmonised chorus, from where the protagonists share their fate ("Bury the hatchet deeper and nothing can grow, and no one else can see, no one has to know; that we are the last romantics, death of an era, this imitation is the cruelest kind of love").
Their strongest offering since Violet twenty years ago?
Check that earlier remark. These Pathways have led to The Birthday Massacre’s best album to date.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ
The Birthday Massacre will undertake a 13-date UK tour commencing 24th October.
Ticket details can be found here: https://thebirthdaymassacre.com/#tour
Under Your Spell (2017), Diamonds (2020) and the Billboard charting Fascination (2022) are all worthy of attention, but new album Pathways is their strongest offering since breakout album Violet back in 2005.
Not that there’s any particular deviation from the tried & tested Birthday Massacre formula, but for Pathways the band – Sara "Chibi" (lead vocals), Michael Rainbow (guitars, programming, vocals), Michael Falcore (lead guitar), Phillip Elliott (drums), Owen Mackinder (keys), Brett Carruthers (bass) – have incorporated a bigger and bolder use of dynamics, as well as stretching their musical boundaries of light and shade.
Those dynamics are evident from the get-go and album opener 'Sleep Tonight.'
The song's title, however, is something you aren’t likely to get much of with the heavyweight industrial riffage that introduces the song and permeates throughout the pulsating number, giving way only for the dreamier verses and an atmospheric chorus.
The synth-backed electro-metal of 'All Of You' is another that shifts from dark riffage to lighter, slightly eery verse passages; there’s also a short, ethereal breakdown that builds back up to the metal-edged attack of the song’s opening.
As Chibi forlornly sings, it may be "a love forgotten," but it’s a memorable, sonically impacting song.
The downtempo 'The Vanishing Game' is a great example of the band’s goth-gilded dark-pop; full of lush synths, a strong vocal melody and a great chorus, it sits as a highlight of the album.
The title track, which follows, is an up-tempo with heavy Euro-pop sensibilities, albeit here with a grittier, new wave vibe.
'Whisper,' like 'The Vanishing Game,' is a downtempo goth ballad, but here the guitars dominate over the synth-backing to add an intense edge, as do the ghoul like, vocal interjections ("Take your last breath so I can sleep, tell me that you'll weep for me").
Contrast then comes by way of the electro-pop shaped 'Wish,' the album’s synth-bubbling, radio friendly moment.
The Pathways trait of dynamic light and shade returns with 'Faces,' a highly charged darkwave number that flits from soft, melodic and lyrically bleak verses ("I fall asleep before I close my eyes, the scars of all that’s left behind") to nu-metal power-riffage.
The album closes on atmospheric ballad 'Cruel Love,' where power chords and synth textures give way to delicately sung verses and a dual voiced, harmonised chorus, from where the protagonists share their fate ("Bury the hatchet deeper and nothing can grow, and no one else can see, no one has to know; that we are the last romantics, death of an era, this imitation is the cruelest kind of love").
Their strongest offering since Violet twenty years ago?
Check that earlier remark. These Pathways have led to The Birthday Massacre’s best album to date.
Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ
The Birthday Massacre will undertake a 13-date UK tour commencing 24th October.
Ticket details can be found here: https://thebirthdaymassacre.com/#tour
