Following last year's new album Deceiver/Mirror, Birth (Defects) returns with a live cassette coming out May 1 on Anathemata Editions.
The cassette is titled Will Shatter Rides Again. Per writer/author Joe Gross:
Birth (Defects) celebrates all of this on Will Shatter. Unless something very weird happens (or that long-desired Japanese tour happens), this is a tombstone for Birth (Defects) as a live act, a coda rather than an introduction. (A final 12” is due in spring 2026.)
The brainchild of Sean Gray on vocals and electronics and guitarist Rob Savillo, Birth (Defects) expands in a live setting. This iteration of the band included electronics whiz Joey Generic, bassist Ian Graham, guitarist Jake Reid, and drummer Matt Buie, all of whom are steeped in a deep love of noise made by guitar and amp, electronics or otherwise, all of whom are united in a desire to alter brain chemistry through sheer volume.
Those who know the band’s earlier, more straight-forward work, which fits easily under the “noise rock” heading, may be taken aback at how much Japanese noise is folded into Will Shatter Gray may have cut his teeth as a kid on Sonic Youth and the Velvet Underground, but as he was always on the lookout for extremes, Gray’s brain went full-galaxy when he heard the hideous abstractions of Japanese noise, especially the aural horrors of Hijokaidan. Understandably, those tentacles have wormed their way into this rectangular slab of madness.
Will Shatter was recorded by Joey Generic in Delaware, on May 31, 2025, at the Newark Bike Project. One mic in the back of the room, capturing a half-house of the maelstrom mere feet away, harsh lightning, no banter, just blood and fire. The recording was mastered by Shigenori Kobayashi, who has worked with legendary Japanese hardcore bands (Lip Cream, LIFE, Death Side) at Noise Room in Tokyo, January 2026.
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tracklist:
- Preamble
- Youth
- Glass
- Despotism
- Doubts
- Trapped
- Macross
- Under
- Epilogue
