Originally Posted by LOOMER
(Post 559368)
NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS
DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!!
Mute Records (2008)
- Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
- Today's Lesson
- Moonland
- Night of the Lotus Eaters
- Albert Goes West
- We Call Upon the Author
- Hold On To Yourself
- Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)
- Jesus of the Moon
- Midnight Man
- More News From Nowhere
Nick Cave is one of those artists that nowadays, at first glance, seems to possess no real special qualities. Sure, you might point in the direction of his old albums and pinpointing the really freaky results of an oddball junkie's literary ramblings and goth-flirting gestures and say: "he's unique!" Sadly enough, it has been revealed that the source for these really special moments (the audial ones) was Blixa Bargeld. What is left is conventional songwriting by Cave and his fellow seeders, such as Warren Ellis. The conventionality annoyed me when I first heard Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, but after a while I understood that my annoyance wholly depended on the very thought of it. So I dropped that thought, in order to really be able to listen to the new Nick Cave. In that light, Dig, Lazarus, dig!!! is a very good album, with a more focused sounding content than it's double predecessor, where a sense of decadence and decay dominates the atmosphere (largely instilled by its marvelous cover).
One of the great feats of this album is its upright and honest tone, which is in fact strenghtened by its great weakness: it's Rock Music. The songs are, like most ones that originate from what we call the sphere of popular music, the type of songs that you've heard before. Riff rock-convention, piano blues, and slammering guitar chords are the potato of this dish, paired with an ironic sauce of odd backing vocals and the well-cooked filet of Cave's rambling/singing/recital, which is at its height in the gem that is the third track, "Moonland".
The album is very dynamic in the aspects of tempo and intensity,with "Night of the Lotus Eaters" being the slowest and most haunting piece of the record, and "Midnight Man" and "Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)" the opposite: energetic pieces following a more standard rock script. Cave's faiblesse for situating his lyrics in a more literary context is still live and kicking, as seen in the fact that the entire seven-minute piece "More News From Nowhere" is based on the Ulysses story. Although somewhat forcibly literary, it's still a good song, where Cave's recital is accompanied by an almost aggravatingly simple effort by the Bad Seeds.
Overall, the record is an honorable effort: it captivates me with its theatricality, where Cave himself, with his unbuttoned shirt and greasy moustache, is the main actor. The dirty, nightly atmosphere (which is brilliantly captured in the official video for "More News From Nowhere") constitutes great scenery for his lyrical gestures, and it has the upper hand against Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus in the sense that the context of the record is narrower and the style of production more focused.
4/5
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