Album Review: The Birthday Massacre by Fascination
– By Rob Jones –
You don’t come across it very often, but some bands are entirely unique, and while you can cobble together comparisons to a lot of bands in the elements of their sound, There’s just simply no one band that is at all similar to The Birthday Massacre. Their sound fuses together elements of bands like Depeche Mode, Stabbing Westward, The Cure, Tiffany, Cyndi Lauper, and Switchblade symphony. But also, with the soundtracks of Legend, The Neverending Story, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. This band would fit perfectly on the soundtrack of Stranger Things.
The album starts out with the title track and features some beautiful mid-tempo synths and distorted guitars, The type of sound this band has really become known for.
“Dreams Of You” is a lot more direct synth wave, this song would’ve been huge back in the days when Tears For Fears and A Flock Of Seagulls were popular. “Cold Lights” is my favorite song on the album and reminds me of Darkest Days era Stabbing Westward.
“Stars and Satellites” slows the tempo down a bit for a crushing borderline industrial sound with the exception of the beautiful synth melodies layered over it. “One More Time” brightens things up in a very beautiful song that slightly reminds me of the poppier music The Cure recorded during the 90s, this song and the title track feature a bit of male lead vocals which isn’t something that’s happened on their albums before, and it adds an extra dimension to the vocal dynamic in this band.
“Like Fear, Like Love ” sounds very Depeche Mode inspired.
“Precious Hearts ” is one of my very favorite songs on this album. The Birthday Massacre would’ve fit well on early albums like Violet or Walking With Strangers. I must say that on this album singer Chibi does some of the best singing she’s done in a long time. Recent albums have favored her softer range more dominantly and while she still sounded great, On Fascination she really lets her greater vocal range shine. The music on this album is excellent, this band does not make bad albums. I’ve yet to hear them even do a mediocre one. This is one of the best bands that more people need to be aware of, their songs are total ear candy.
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