BIRTH (DEFECTS) – Mirror / Deceiver

Beschreibung

If you find yourself inexplicably getting misty over a record that is anything but feels-producing, the confusion might be yours if you didn’t have the slightest inkling that we’re still a little sore over here about Albini’s passing. So to get to hear a record wrenched from the sinews of the pre- and post-Albini Electrical is not just a treat but something extra specially significant. Which the band could have completely whiffed on if they had been anything other than great, and even greater? The record they mixed there.
But even better than that is that it’s hewn from a very specific genre while at the same time both sounding and feeling pretty fucking genre-free (which is important if you’re hailing from DC/Baltimore where the Fugazi shadow looms large). It’s a grand buy…personal fave song at present? UNDER.
So file under NECESSARY. And you can tell them I said so.“
– Eugene Robinson (OXBOW)

It would be so easy to say something simple like “they don’t make ‘em like this Birth (Defects) album anymore” because it would be true. The Baltimore/DC area band recorded Deceiver / Mirror in 2017 and let it sit after dissolving. Truly, this band does not exist anymore and will never make another record.

But what about this covers LP coming out? Clearly what was just stated was a lie. There is another Birth (Defects) record to follow. It’s not entirely of their own songs, and maybe just some of these folks played on it. See how I deceived you? I created an expectation and then ran over it. I caused drama where none needed to exist.

Curiously, that (in forms both more and less severe) is what Deceiver / Mirror is about. The band explains that it’s “loosely about how anyone can be a liar no matter how good of a person they are and about the impact lying has on not just the people you lie to but those connected to that person you’ve lied to — or even the people connected to you as the liar. Basically, the Deceiver side acknowledges of the weight everyone has to bear due to your mistakes; the Mirror side is about the acceptance that you (or anyone, really) are capable of hurting others and trying to learn from it and actually listen to the people you’ve hurt.” This record was born in an era of significant lies and is being released into another, where theoretically suffering people find salvation through lies that destroy communities in real time — as if somehow that justifies telling these untruths in the first place.

What, then, are the truths in this work? It’s heavily indebted to ‘90s grunge and noise, heartily recalling the whammy bar bend and distortion pedal power dynamic of Bleach- era Nirvana, the burly backwoods horror of Tad, and the deafeningly laconic riffs and studda-step rhythms of Cherubs. It dispenses with the need for ballads, each track swinging the bat around and hitting anything that walks into its flail.

It’s gloriously not of this time nor any other – far too late for the trend, too early and unconcerned with any impending revival. It’s packaged with care in a gatefold sleeve and sonically in good hands from the start (recorded by Multicult’s Nick Skrobisz, mixed by Matthew Barnhart at Electrical Audio, mastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service). And it lurches forth in a mode that becomes more unhinged and intense as the record goes on, in particular, the closing duo of “Trapped” and “Throne.”

Ultimately, the real truth is that record was made for the band, their friends and family, and a slowly expanding circle of individuals who’ll connect to Birth (Defects)’ direct themes and broken angles as a self-fulfilling prophecy. No lies needed, no hopes of “making it,” no need for any further validation. There are a couple dozen bands in 2025 that’d kill to make something like this, and it’d never even occur to them.
– Doug Mosurock