birthday boyz are excited to announce the release of...

THE BRO CYCLE

Recorded Halloween 2005 in Salem, MA with Kurt Ballou at God City

Released on 12" vinyl by Life in a Box, Unfun, and Waking Records // Initial pressing of 800 by Brooklyn Phono

DOWNLOAD: I.mp3

REVIEW: Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches

i'm very excited and happy for them because they have just dropped a gorgeous-looking and -sounding 12" (recorded by Converge's Kurt Ballou), which documents "The Bro Cycle," i.e., the three long songs which have made up their live sets over the past few years. this one is a split release between three labels: London's Life in a Box, Cali's Unfun and Brooklyn's Waking. how they pulled that trifecta off, i have no idea, but all you really need to know is that this is simply a fantastic release and ought to be gobbled by all fans of heavy music.

Birthday Boyz play a strain of very dire, dynamic, metallic post-hardcore music. the sound is all about the build, the churn, the catharsis, the soaring guitar break, the crushing re-entry. i keep coming back to the word dire, because these guys play as if it's just the end of everything, but there's this really intense beauty being harnessed as well. it's not dark as much as it is just extreme and heavy in the emotional as well as physical senses.

seeing them live, i was reminded that their concerts are like taking communion or something. they're just very intense, even grave experiences; you'll rarely see a band live that MEANS it more than these guys or that communicates with each other and the music on such a visceral level. the songs are mathy and fairly chopsy, but there's really not much of a sense of shredding, per se; the band has a very collective feel--they really churn as a unit. you mainly notice the virtuosity in the songcraft and the epic dynamics and the savage performance energy. Birthday Boyz really make the most of the whole screaming-away-from-the-mike thing; the vocals are like pure emoting and are always totally buried in the music--they almost sound like they're being screamed from within a burning building or something. i don't think i've ever understood a single word in a BBoyz song, but the screaming gets a really powerful message across nonetheless.

there's a fascinating subtext to all this intensity, one that really helps to set this band apart, and that's their strange insular sense of humor. "The Bro Cycle," song titles like "Gaybroham Lincoln," "Ho Money Bro Problemz," "Basketball," etc. etc. ever since i've known these guys, they've been quick to undercut their serious-as-hell music with jokey presentation and it makes for a pretty fascinating, head-spinning juxtaposition. a lot of times jokiness is used in music to cover up lackluster concepts or execution, but the BBoyz have nothing to hide or apologize for. this humor has simply become part of the mystique with this band, a mystique that persists even among their friends--it's just a really cool, subversive effect.

the music is gorgeous and heavy as shit, with riffs that will not leave your head--DFSBP promise on that one. samples are at their myspace page. gotta give a bigass kudos to drummer Greg on the gorgeous, imagination-fueling artwork you see above. it's just superclassy and mysterious and hopeful and even more so b/c you'd have absolutely no idea from the packaging what the music inside might sound like. i'd almost think it was some sort of electronica or hip-hop. it just looks super contemporary, edgy, boundless, profound, etc. and the music is all of those things as well.

there's a lot of b.s. "abstract metal" and heavy music that's getting all self-consciously arty flying around. there's a meticulous craft happening in BBoyz songs that i wouldn't hesitate to call "art," but they don't skimp on the riffs, the complexity, the weight, the force whatsoever. it's just elemental shit, really.

BIRTHDAY BOYZ

BIRTHDAY BOYZ PLAYS fastidiously crafted SONGS, harnessing the emotional intensity of hardcore while discarding the reverential sentimentality traditionally attached to it as a genre.