Ask anyone who’s listened to Detroit band Mirror Mask to describe their sound and you might get a different answer every time.
Naturally indebted to genres like pop, garage rock and post punk, the band has appreciated takes like “The Go-Go’s if they wrote Joy Division songs” that describe their inspirations, which also include everyone from The Cramps to Siouxsie & Banshees to Portishead to PJ Harvey.
For brevity’s sake, though, they’ve sort of settled on their own hybrid genre: post-pop goth.
“It’s definitely morphed and transformed over time, and I feel like everyone has brought very different elements into it,” guitarist/vocalist Adrian Butterfield said. “But I would say still, if you asked us to define our sound, I think each of us might provide a different genre or different main inspiration. We all just pull inspiration from such different places that it’s hard to pinpoint what our sound is.”
Mirror Mask’s evolution as an undefinable and intriguing band on the rise is the direct result of a steady addition of new members who have brought new perspectives and styles of playing to the table. Started in concept prior to the COVID lockdown by Butterfield and drummer TJ Ghoul as a “goth-style garage band,” the duo soon added experimental synth player Shireen Mehrpay to incorporate elements of moody, darker ambient textures to its sound. Next to jump on board was longtime friend and lead vocalist Rachelle Baker, the former vocalist of electronic duo Little Animal, who was asked to make her first go at being a singer in a “rock band.”
The band was seeking out a second guitarist, but when friend and bassist Lauren Glapa tried out but didn’t have the experience needed as a guitarist, her abilities as a bassist still proved to be an asset to the band’s sound.
The result was a mix of sounds that are pop-forward but with a touch of unease when all of the instruments and the intertwining of five different vocalists work in harmony.
“I think that the having five vocalists and being very vocal forward with two guitars does give us a unique sound,” Butterfield said. “A lot of our songs are very poppy and catchy rhythmically with the drums and guitar, but then the synth will be doing some weird atmosphere thing over it that I think kind of makes it darker and just different.”
When lead guitarist Dina Bankole joined and rounded out the band’s lineup, she also brought with her plenty of experience and some cache as the member of around 20 bands in the Detroit area.
“When we invited her to play with us, we were very excited for her to join,” Butterfield recalls. “She was like the cherry on top.”
Shortly after Bankole’s arrival, Mirror Mask recorded a demo inside the emptied indoor pool in Baker’s house, borrowing the idea from another band Butterfield can’t recall the name of who had tried it before.
The Okemos Demos capture songs the band had been playing together for a long time in their basement, Slick Shit and Bleed U Dry. Immediately, words like haunting and ethereal come to mind in describing Baker’s vocals.
Done with the intention of getting some recorded songs available to send to venues to book shows, Mirror Mask’s DIY pool recording was done as an act of throwing caution to the wind.
“We were like, OK, that sounds like a really weird idea, this is either gonna sound awful or it’s gonna sound cool,” Butterfield said.
Despite a limited catalogue of published songs to date, Mirror Mask have established a fanbase behind their unique sonic footprint, resulting in building anticipation for their first full length album, which they expect to release later this fall.
Recorded by Shadow Show’s Kate Derringer during a set of sessions last summer at Rust Belt in Royal Oak and Derringer’s home studio dubbed the Echo Chamber, the band captured a few different aspects of its evolving sound during different sessions, Butterfield said, with the help of producer Greg Ahee or Protomartyr.
Butterfield said she believes the sessions distilled much of the essence of what makes Mirror Mask unique, capturing its dancey, electronic pop that evokes New Order on tracks like advance single Anymore, before veering into gothy spaghetti Western territory. Other tracks lean into the post punk stylings of goth pioneers like Bauhaus.
Ample space at Rust Belt allowed Mirror Mask to capture rhythm guitar, bass and drums in the same room before doing lead guitar, synth and vocals on another take, adding overdubs of the band’s five vocalists. An additional recording session yielded Under the Gun, which was written by Bankole, giving Mirror Mask what Butterfield describes as a “sound defining” song.
“This is the first song that she took lead on, and it’s really cool,” Butterfield said. “Dina just had a guitar riff and she was like, ‘OK, we kind of have like a beachy goth vision for this one,’ and my brain immediately kind of went to The Cramps type sounds. So, I just did a riff like that with it, and it just evolved. It’s really cool how all of our different styles kind of play off of each other.”
With 11 or 12 songs slated for the new album that is untitled as of now, Butterfield said Mirror Mask are excited to see where its vocal harmony-driven sound goes next. There’s still room to expand its already diverse sound, she said.
“There’s a lot of cool harmonies going on,” Butterfield said of the new album. “We usually have - not in every song - but I would say about half of our songs, there will be like a chanty, witchy vocal round type thing going on, as well,” Butterfield said. “We just keep pushing Rachelle more and more to get more comfortable with screaming and yelling in songs, because we love the mix of textures, where it’s soft and pretty, but also gritty and angry.”
Something post-shoegaze in Mirror Mask. Thanks Marty for making me discover the band Mirror Mask! Their track, Anymore, has convinced me.