release date: Mar. 30, 1981
format: digital (2000 remaster)
[album rate: 2,5 / 5] [2,72]
producer: Tony Cohen, The Birthday Party
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Australia
Studio album debut, or: second album by Australian post-punk and no-wave band The Birthday Party... Fact is, it's officially the first under the name of The Birthday Party; however, the same band with the same line-up - under the name of The Boys Next Door - released the album The Birthday Party in 1980, and in retrospect that album has been re-released as the debut by The Birthday Party.
Anyway, this album follows the 1980-album, and the earlier debut album Door, Door (1979) by the same members but under the name of The Boys Next Door, with some of its members who had played together since 1973, and in the current line-up since '76.
Compared to the 1980-album The Birthday Party this takes another step in an experimental direction focusing on art punk and no wave with less harmony structure.
I never really liked this album nor the music of this band all that much, and it's quite evident that this is a different version of post-punk looking at how it was probably less harmonic and melodic compared to its British counterparts, which was overshadowed by gothic rock. This is closer to a clone of American proto-punk (The Stooges), contemporary no wave (Contortions) and German industrial and experimental post-punk (e.g. Einstürzende Neubauten) at the time looking for new ways of musical expression.
After this, the band released Junkyard in '82 before they finally dissolved in '83 and split into the bands Crime & the City Sollution, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5, Rolling Stone Album Guide 3 / 5 stars ]
