DAY 3: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY - JUNKYARD (1982) - 7 Days of Halloween in Music

 

If ever you needed the filthiest, loudest and most brutally intense post-punk record imaginable, then look no further than The Birthday Party’s Junkyard. Whilst their debut album, Prayers On Fire, was a stark statement of their experimentative sound, and their follow up EP, Mutiny, provided a more terrifyingly beautiful offering, Junkyard sits in the middle as a metaphor for the band’s haunted and decaying destructive sound.

Junkyard is raw in every sense of the word. As the title implies, the songs are scattered like broken and obsolescent piles of scrap metal, and as such Junkyard is heavy and unorthodox. Take for example the plodding rhythm of “She’s Hit”, in which the slow burning bassline ensures you with this intensely terrifying atmosphere. It almost sounds as if you’ve just come across this cursed piece of Americana blues. The same could be said for the non-album single “Release The Bats”, which bounces along with it’s gothic-sex-vampire-nightmare sort of theme. Honestly I have no idea what the song is supposed to be about but it gives an example of one of the most endearing qualities of vocalist Nick Cave’s lyrics, which at this point provided the listener with enough words and phrases to paint a picture in your mind whilst still displaying raw aggression through his incoherence.

In a way, it's the result of the band’s experimentation through this incoherence that makes Junkyard such a captivating listen. The album holds all the qualities of a tour through a decaying junkyard, and as such the band seeks only to make some noise and allow their musical qualities to come through with that. For example, guitarist Rowland S. Howard does not take the leading role that you would expect. Instead, his guitar sections burst their way into the album’s louder songs and creep their way into it’s more eerie songs. Junkyard forces you to wait and witness the intensity of his guitar playing as it adds to the album’s disjointed atmosphere, and when the pay off finally comes, it forces you to appreciate it’s raw power.

I think Junkyard is somewhat under appreciated amongst The Birthday Party’s discography, likely due to the fact that some of their biggest songs either appeared on previous releases or non-album singles, and that’s exactly why I think you should give it a listen this Halloween. It’s raw, uncompromising and it forces you to wait and appreciate it’s terrifying craft instead of allowing you to greedily take it in all at once. Give these hauntingly intense tracks a listen:


SHE’S HIT

RELEASE THE BATS

JUNKYARD

SEVERAL SINS