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Amazon.com's Best of 1999
Angular art punk fronted by a dagger-wielding madman with literary pretensions? The Birthday Party didn't simply flirt with chaos, they inhaled it; chaos flowed through their veins and ignited the spark for every firing synapse of this exquisitely dark band. Led by caterwauling vocalist Nick Cave, Live 11
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Amazon.com's Best of 1999
Angular art punk fronted by a dagger-wielding madman with literary pretensions? The Birthday Party didn't simply flirt with chaos, they inhaled it; chaos flowed through their veins and ignited the spark for every firing synapse of this exquisitely dark band. Led by caterwauling vocalist Nick Cave, Live 1981-82 captures this dangerous bunch at the height of their powers. Not for the squeamish or those sensitive to abrasive noises, but a spectacular car wreck nonetheless. --S. Duda
Few bands were as cataclysmic, chaotic, and iconoclastic as Australia's Birthday Party. And while they spawned a few imitators (most notably Bogshead, Scratch Acid, and the short-lived "batcave" movement), their fractured sound and aura of wickedness were so far removed from the norm of early-'80s rock music that no group even came close to duplicating their murderous persona and manic, driving racket. Live 1981-82 collects 17 tracks from concerts in London, Germany, and Greece, and for a band whose music seemed to cling to sanity by the most delicate of threads, these recordings are surprisingly coherent and faithful to the album versions. Taking into account the barrage of feedback, the pile-driving bass, and singer Nick Cave's howling, the sound is also quite good (the only exception being the single cut from Greece, a cover of the Stooges "Funhouse"). As for the performances, the band is in excellent form. Cave delivers the songs with conviction and energy, punctuating them with his startling vocabulary of shiver-inducing screams, grunts, snorts, groans, and growls. Considering the schizophrenia that was so much a part of the band's music, Cave's ability to convincingly deliver his gut-wrenching angst is nothing short of remarkable. While Cave's Manson-meets-Morrison persona drew most of the attention, it was the Birthday Party's ability to swing--hard--that put them over the top. Drummer Phil Calvert is a beacon in the sea of chaos as guitarists Mick Harvey and Roland S. Howard disembowel their guitars, blasting shards of jazz and blues across the horizon. The late bassist Tracy Pew is the real revelation. Rock solid and never missing a beat, Pew emerges as the constant amidst the wreckage, providing the rich base from which these bad seeds sprung. Live 1981-81 is a near-perfect document of one of rock's most extreme, creative, and dangerous forces.--S. Duda
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