Junkyard - The Birthday Party

The Background -------------------- The Birthday Party were a band from Australia (Formerly known as The Boys Next Door). The background leading to this album is quite important. In their earlier incarnation as The Boys Next Door their music was standard punk rock and included many covers of songs by artists such as The Ramones and Iggy Pop. The introduction of unstable sounding synthesizers saw the band's music change into much more quirky and odd lyrical arrangements. Towards the end of the Boys next Door career one thing was apparent; the songs were getting louder. The band set sail for Europe and The Birthday Party were ...  Read the complete review

'Junkyard' is the third album from Australian post-punk rockers The Birthday Party, and it's certainly the most drugged-up album I've heard in a long time. Nick Cave croons and screams in an endlessly repetitive, often schizophrenic style while Rowland S. Howard occasionally forgets he's supposed to be playing guitar at all. The end result is confused, somewhat disturbed, and much fun. I suppose the main problem with this album is that it probably requires the listener to be in a similar state to the performers in order to really appreciate it, as much of it just sounds tedious and samey to me, especially songs like 'She's Hit' that seem to go on forever. The ...  Read the complete review