Progressive-Psych outfit Birth land on UK & Billboard Charts and drop new music video for “Long Way Down”
Debut LP from San Diego Rockers Lands on UK & North American Album Charts in First Week of Release.
Southern California psychedelic/progressive rock unit, Birth, released its full-length debut LP, ‘Born‘, on July 15 via UK rock label Bad Omen Records (Wytch Hazel, Spell, Satan’s Satyrs). Featuring members of San Diego’s revered retro rockers Astra, along with current or former members of Joy, Radio Moscow, and Sacri Monti, Birth owns a cavernous cache of credibility rarely found in developing musical groups. Described as “a magic-eye journey into kaleidoscopic sound”, and “a dystopian take on the here and now”, ‘Born‘ is available for purchase at this location..
Connecting with fans on both sides of the Atlantic the band’s debut LP has landed on both the Official UK and North American Billboard Charts in its first week of release. ‘Born‘ placed at #12 on the Official UK Independent Album Breakers Chart, #16 on the Official UK Rock / Metal Album Chart and garnered a #31 spot on the Official UK Independent Album Chart.
Simultaneously, the album also earned #17 on Billboard’s Top New Artists Albums, #19 on its Current Hard Music Albums, and at #66 on the Independent Albums Chart while also placing #31 Hard Music Albums on the Canadian Billboard Chart and #110 on their Top Current Albums ranking. In its review of the debut,San Diego Magazine called Birth‘s sound “head-trip wizardry” and stated, “Born’ showcases the kind of cosmic journey four seasoned veterans can conjure up when they get into the same room together.”
In celebration of the album’s chart debuts, Birth unveil a video for the album’s penultimate track “Long Way Down“. The clip, created by Vince Edwards (Behemoth, Motor Sister), sees the band performing the track amidst a kaleidoscopic, Beat-Club setting.
View Birth‘s “Long Way Down” at this location.
“‘Long Way Down” is one of the darker tracks on the album. It was written out of frustration at the state of the world,” says Birth‘s Conor Riley. “It’s really about watching the slow decline and trying to hype myself up for the end of it. For the video, we wanted a vintage vibe that captured the darker and chaotic theme of the song. We worked with Vince Edwards who really helped us develop that vision.” Featuring guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Riley and guitarist Brian Ellis, musicians who burst onto the prog-psych scene in the late aughts with Astra, a formidable, foundational group hailed as “prog goliaths” (AllMusic), who would shape the sound of things to come alongside co-conspirators such as Earthless, Diagonal and Dungen, and whose albums ‘The Weirding’ (2009) and ‘The Black Chord’(2012) stand proud as two of the greatest progressive achievements of this century thus far, there is a palatable excitement surrounding Birth and the group has been pegged as one to watch in underground circles. Excitement surrounding the group kicked into a gear once a now-deleted demo ep was unleashed, on a pay-what-you-will basis, on the Bandcamp platform in 2021, which marked the spark of creation for the Birth universe, delivered a blast of vibrant progressive rock rich in cinematic scope and psychedelic intensity, and laid the groundwork for what was to come.
“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world” . So wrote Mary Shelley in Frankenstein, arguably the first science fiction tale. A full 204 years later, the quest remains – how best to elucidate our daily lives with some form of inspiration that moves the spirit beyond its earthly shackles? On ‘Born‘, Birth musically and creatively constructs a science-fiction-inspired sound-world in which bleak tumult and skybound rapture co-exist. The result is an intoxicating album haunted by earthly concerns while its sonics aim simultaneously for the stars. “I’m a scientist by trade and I read a lot of dystopian sci-fi, which I believe is relevant to many of the events that have been occurring lately,” notes Riley. “These views feed a dark, spiritual and mystical relationship that I have with scientific thought”.
Track listing:
1.) Born
2.) Descending Us
3.) For Yesterday
4.) Cosmic Tears
5.) Another Time
6.) Long Way Down
Birth are:
Conor Riley (vocals, keyboards, acoustic guitar), Brian Ellis (lead guitar, keyboards), Trevor Mast (bass), and Thomas DiBenedetto (drums).
Drums on ‘Born’ performed by Paul Marrone.
Follow Birth online at Bandcamp, Instagram, and Facebook.
