When the Birthday Party released their penultimate EP inter-band relations were at a low, tempers running at a druggy fever. Lyrically darker than anything on the previous year’s Junkyard LP, The Bad Seed crackled with chaotic brio and ill intent, reaching its apex on skewed gothic country ballad ‘Deep In The Woods’ as the combustible Melbourne outfit backed up their discordant experimental sonics with songwriting depth. Starting with just singer Nick Cave’s voice and Roland S. Howard’s guitar, it slowed down their assault (hinting at the former’s next incarnation with the Bad Seeds), Tracey Pew’s great sludgy bassline and Mick Harvey’s forceful drums underlining its second verse’s theatrical allusions to Edgar Allen Poe. The singer is at his most forthright at its salty denouement (“Love is for fools and all fools are lovers/It’s raining on my house and none of the others”), mixing up black humour with something more deeply and darkly profound, before chipping in a post-modern finish by simply intoning “End” at the death. A killer B, literally.