Review by Hawk Chavez
Album: Looking Glass
The Canadian Industrial Goth-Rock band, The Birthday Massacre, transports deeper electric 80’s synth-pop and combines it with modern rock. Tantalizing synths, thumping rhythms and heavy guitars with attractive rock-edge vocals is the ultimate power of the title track album ‘Looking Glass’ as it has always been with every album the band creates.
The EP contains some new tracks as well as some remixes. Two of the remixes are ‘Red Stars’, the first is a pop-airy version of floating sythns combined with powerful vocals in love-swept formula. The other remix is in the minimalist form with soft electronica synths in-between Chibi’s ghostly seductive vocals.
Just call me, ‘Shiver’… oh yeah! Beyond doubt, astounding melodies ‘out of the starting gate’ when my ears noticed what appears to be tricked out woodblocks; I’m a geek for percussions. The track theme deals with the cold-hard cruel world, something everyone can relate to easily.
The greatest surprise is the remix of the song ‘I Think We’re Along Now’ first recorded by Tommy James and The Shondells in the 60’s and later remixed by Tiffany in the 80’s. Which no offence to both artists but The Birthday Massacre nailed this cover superbly. The version is closer to Tiffany’s remake, but there are slight hints of Tommy James and The Shondells in the track; in my book, The Birthday Massacre could not have did it better.
Video: Looking Glass
Directed: Dan Ouellette
It comes to me with no surprise that the video to The Birthday Massacre’s album track ‘Looking Glass’ would be utmost amazing, the moment I watched it, I loved it. True to their nature with distorted guitars, remarkable synths, and such variety of high energy, it kept my eyes glued to the screen until the very end and afterwards I wanted more.
The video is set in a school-like environment, students, including Chibi, wearing school uniforms in a past modern classroom; the students donning numbered porcelain doll-face masks, some of their visages are cracked and partly shattered.
Story based on a relationship gone bad, which translates in the video as a student having a crush on her professor. The story starts out sweet and incident with a student handing her professor an apple, (the professor is remotely similar to the masked character ‘V’ from the film ‘V for Vendetta’). She quickly finds out that he is destroying his students, shattering their; what appears to be their inner souls; by inserting nails in the back of the heads quickly their faces begin to bleed.
For more information on The Birthday Massacre:
Official Site
Myspace
Metropolis Records