The above is a picture of the Birthday Boyz show last night at a venue with the word “death” in it. While the Birthday Boyz described themselves as “very dire, dynamic, metallic post-hardcore” to the New York Times, we here at Impose always get fixated on the metallic part. Also, they forgot “epic”. Their MySpace currently features a “bro cycle” of three largely instrumental tracks that, written three years ago, don’t sound weighed by passing post-rock trends.
This next picture was taken on self-timer during the Boyz’ first practice. The original lineup didn’t include the same guitarists, which is why this photo was not completely blown out. You can still make out some oval-like shapes that are either balloons (they’re Birthday Boyz for a reason!), or disembodied spirits of Nephilim.
This is a picture of Birthday Boyz chilling with some black metal dudes at a reenactment of the Battle of Hastings. Look out for that lance, someone might get hurt! Just kiddin.
A show is considered a dude fest when over 81% of a band’s audience members have penises. The Birthday Boyz’ flirt with this over-concentration of dick all the time. We could conjecture that this is because their songs fall into intricately uneven time signatures and you can’t hear the words when they scream, but the girls who do show up look like replicants:
This last image was captured when Birthday Boyz had a layover in Tokyo on their way to mainland China. No one has uttered the phrase post-rock in their presence ever since, though post-hardcore doesn’t seem to bother them.
