[2] Pitchfork Media describes "By Chance" as sounding "more than a bit like the early Smiths.

An urgent, melodic verse, a foot to the floor chorus - its lyric just the repeated title.

Studios in Melbourne, at the same time as The Birthday Party was recording Junkyard.

[10][11] Reviewed in NME at the time of release, it was described as, "Miscreant pop music attempting to disgrace its fealty to any number of sources.

"[12] The Guardian describes the song as an "odd, punkish sort of folk rock, deceptively primitive and sometimes rattlingly suggestive of the Velvet Underground.