One of the wonders of platforms like YouTube and Spotify is that you can go there for one song and it gives you recommendations for other artists, If you’re feeling adventurous and decide to follow those recommendations you can sometimes find some real gems, The Birthday Massacre is one of those discoveries for me. I heard their song “Leaving tonight ” years ago and in no time ended up buying all of their albums, This is one of those bands you listen to and ask yourself “How the hell is this band not huge?!” Their music is beautiful and dark, but not dark in a death metal sort of way.
No one sounds like this band, But there are a bunch of musical elements you can throw together in an attempt to describe their sound. I personally hear elements of Stabbing Westward, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Cyndi Lauper, and Tiffany. But also mixed with soundtracks of 80s fantasy and horror films like Legend, The never-ending story, poltergeist, and a Nightmare on Elm Street. Their last album Diamonds was released in 2020 and is absolutely incredible, It showed a lot of artistic growth as a band but it had the misfortune of dropping right as the pandemic hit, the tour was cancelled and the album never really got the opportunity to be promoted on the road.
Fascination, depending on how you do the math, is their tenth full length album and will no doubt both please existing fans as well as bringing their distinct goth ear candy to new listeners worldwide, this band in my mind would fit perfectly on the soundtrack to the Netflix series Stranger Things.
The album starts out with the title track which begins with some beautiful keys and some ooooh’s before the synths begin and singer Chibi is introduced, her soft vocals which play to the beautiful melody of the shimmering keys and pulsing synths before some semi Robert Smith sounding vocals sing the pre chorus, which isn’t a usual part of their sound but a very welcome addition none the less. Then the chorus hits and Chibi sings with a power I haven’t heard her sing with for years singing out “I’m falling, I’m flying, the only reason to live, is because we’re dying” this song is very early The Cure meets the more mellow side of Stabbing Westward, this song makes for a great introduction to this band’s overall sound. One thing that creates the incredible sound of this band is the amazing chemistry of guitarist/keyboardist Rainbow and guitarist Falcore, there’s just simply no one like these two.
“Dreams of you” is one of the album’s singles and is very 80’s new wave, this wouldn’t sound out of place sandwiched in a playlist between A flock of seagulls and Tears for Fears. “Cold lights” is my personal favorite song on the album, it starts out with a bell and some eerie cinematic synths before playing some chugging beats and more shimmering synths, Chibi sings in the more soft restrained style she’s used for the most part on the last few albums. The guitar solo here is minimalistic but effective. This song isn’t single material but it’s still fantastic in it’s own right.
“Stars and Satellites” has become a fan favorite and sounds like it would’ve fit really well on their album Superstition, slower synths and chugging guitar rifts are accented by bright keys, very Stabbing Westward meets Tangerine Dream. “One more time” starts out with some very bright sounding post punk guitars, a very beautiful song which sounds slightly 90s era the cure meets Gary Numan and Tiffany, This song is a synth pop track with a great emotive guitar solo from guitarist Falcore, This is a beautiful song to wrap yourself up in that is accented towards the end by some Tears for Fears sounding male vocals.
“Like fear, like love” starts with some early post punk guitars and pulsing synths, Chibi returns to her higher register on this song, Another favorite from the album.
“Once again” with it’s heavier mid tempo guitars and synths would’ve fit well on their album Hide and Seek. “Precious hearts” is one of my very favorites on this album, beautiful keys weave over energetic synths and guitars, Chibi’s vocals are spellbinding on this track.
“The end of all stories” is very cinematic with it’s Tangerine Dream meets The Cure sound, in all honesty there’s a million bands that try to imitate The Cure but when they want to do so no one does it as well as The Birthday Massacre, this track is further proof of it. I’m talking Disintegration era The Cure stuff here, they’ve done a few songs that fit this description and it’s always breathtaking.
The Birthday Massacre have crafted another excellent release here, to date they haven’t ever done a bad one and have remained relatively consistent, some albums push the envelope more than others and if I have any criticism of this one it’s that Fascination feels like this band by the numbers, whereas Diamonds felt more like an evolution. That being said this is an excellent album that further illustrates this band’s greatness.
8/10