Artist: Various
Album: Release the Bats: The Birthday Party As Heard Through the Meat Grinder of Three.One.G
Label: Three.One.G
Tracks: 18
Length: 62:08
Review By: John Durkee

This is a very strange album to review for several reasons. First of all, the album is a tribute album of sorts for the Nick Cave led The Birthday Party. This is odd for me because I had never even heard of The Birthday Party, and I have a very limited exposure to Nick Cave as well. Another peculiarity about this album is that it is a compilation put together by Three.One.G, a record label I had also never heard of. Apparently they put out another tribute album to Queen a few years back. Finally, this is a bizarre album to review simply because of how bizarre the record is. Lacking melody and even in some cases even rhythm, this is not a typical album by any means; while this allows for the album to be interpreted as incredibly artistic and innovative as well as noisy and pointless.

So what does this mean about the record? Since I have no frame of reference as to what the songs were supposed to sound like, all I have to form my view of these songs are the versions on this album, which is likely not a very accurate depiction of their original sound as the label itself is quoted as saying this about this album:
"On this compilation you can hear your favorite bands recreating, or maybe just butchering, your favorite Birthday Party songs." So with this understood analyzing the songs take on Birthday Party’s sound is hard to do.

Basically the album is noise mixed with post rock, with some droning beats here and there and some rather creepy sounding “songs” thrown in between (I say “songs” because in most cases the recording lacks almost anything that one would require to be a song). Lyrics don’t seem to matter on this album for the most part as almost all the vocals are delivered unintelligibly. In fact, the songs themselves come off that way and make this album to be a painful listening experience. Just when it sounds like a real song will start or do something inspiring, that exact same moment is repeated into monotony or never returns at all and is muddled in senseless noise and “experimental art-rock.”

The album’s overall lack of enjoyable tracks is stunning as I can only remember vaguely enjoying The Chinese Stars’ take on the song “The Plague” as well as Error’s “Wild World.” If you are a lover of The Birthday Party or of Three.One.G artists, give this a try, but otherwise, save yourself from this compilation.