Nick Cave Albums (18)
'The Assassination of Jesse James'
Release Date 2/5/2008
Tracks 14
Label Mute U.S.
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What The Critics Say
Very few people actually got to see The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, directed by Australian director Andrew Dominik and based on Ron Hansen's brilliant novel. It's an interesting thing, really: it starred Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck (and the latter got all kinds of accolades from critics, some of whom predicting an Oscar for him in the role of Robert Ford). American audiences are weird that way: they'll spend three or four hours to see a film not supported by a strong narrative, but pass on something that involves the story at every turn and in every shot, whether it's the landscape, the weather, or the actual characters moving through it. Nick Cave is no stranger to writing cinematic scores; this is his fourth, and his second with Bad Seed and Grinderman bandmate Warren Ellis. Their last effort was the soundtrack to an actual Australian western, the brutal yet wonderful Proposition; the screenplay was actually written by Cave. It was a wide-ranging soundtrack, going from strange, eerie, spacious moments to those of great drama and tension. It featured some fearsome musical excess as well as skeletal contemplative ones. The music here is drenched in as much dread, shadow, and darkness as its predecessor, but it's a much more narrative and sophisticated undertaking. The theme, "Rather Lovely Thing," circles its way through the film and enters and exits with regularity, anchoring the viewer, and here, of course, the listener, though it's less apparent. Other cues are beautifully and simply named: "Movin' On," "What Must Be Done," "Last Ride Back to KC," "Destined for Great Things," and the rest. The use of violin, electric guitars, piano, a second violin, viola, bass, some drums and percussion, celeste, cello, and other sundry items are employed very specifically -- check the use of all the strings (though not a string orchestra or string section; this isn't a Danny Elfman score) in "The Money Train," where foreboding, loss, drama, and tension all vie for attention, and the notion of a climactic consequence is firmly in the mind of the listener. It is answered by a lone piano, miked very closely, almost from the inside, as strings answer underscoring the conclusion of what must be done to get rid of James. The determinate nature of the music is not in any way steely; it's almost sad, as if these men know that a genuine archetype, a folk hero, needs to go die in order for America itself to become a tamer, more ordered place, a place where emotions have no place in structure, and something like steely determination is a more calculated and cold undertaking. The way Ellis and Gerard McCain order their stringed instruments is almost painterly. The sense of history is at play in the emotional content of the music rather than around it. Just before the score ends, there is one of the most evocative tracks, simple and effective, called "Counting the Stars." Miked so closely the listener can hear the pianist's feet on the pedals, it lasts only a minute-and-twenty seconds, but in it one can feel what has transpired, what cannot be undone, and how it was done. The music doesn't serve to do anything but look out at a new sonic terrain that reflects the character of the land itself; it is at once more alien and more ghostly and more suspect in spite of its tenderness, because it makes room for and tolerates just such a melody. This is Cave's most extraordinary achievement as a composer of film music thus far. It's all come together here between him and Ellis, two very natural collaborators. This music is certainly cinematic, but despite its vast reach, it is constructed with relative simplicity and an almost taut sparseness that makes it stand as a work on its own. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus'
Release Date 1/1/2004
Tracks 17
Label Mute
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What The Critics Say
When Blixa Bargeld left Nick Cave's Bad Seeds, who would have predicted his departure would result in one of the finest offerings in the band's catalog? Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus is a double CD or, rather, two completely different albums packaged in one very handsome box with a stylish lyric booklet and subtly colored pastel sleeves. They were recorded in a total of 16 days by producer Nick Launay (Kate Bush, Midnight Oil, Girls Against Boys, Silverchair, INXS, Virgin Prunes, et al.). Abbatoir Blues, the first disc in the set (packaged in pink, of course), is a rock & roll record. Yeah, the same guy who released the Boatman's Call, No More Shall We Part, and Nocturama albums has turned in a pathos-drenched, volume-cranked rocker, full of crunch, punishment -- and taste. Drummer Jim Sclavunos' aggressive, propulsive kit work is the bedrock of this set. It and Mick Harvey's storm-squall guitar playing shake things loose on "Get Ready for Love," which opens the album. As Cave goes right for God in the refrain -- "get ready for love" -- in the maelstrom, a gospel choir roaring "praise Him" responds. His tense, ambivalent obsession with theology is pervasive; he mocks the Western perception of God in the heavens yet seeks the mystery of His nature. That he does so while careening through a wall of noisy rock damage is simply stunning. It leaves the listener revved up and off-center for what comes next. The chorus -- members of the London Community Gospel Choir -- is prevalent on both records; the Bad Seeds' arrangement utilizes them wisely as counterpoint and mirror for Cave's own baritone. "Cannibal's Hymn" begins as a love song musically; it's chocked with Cave's dark wit and irony and ends far more aggressively while retaining its melody. The single, "Nature Boy," finds itself on Scalvunos' big beat. Cave and his piano use love's irony in contrast with cheap innuendo as underlined by the choir in their best soul croon. "Let Them Bells Ring" is a most dignified and emotionally honest tribute to Johnny Cash and the world he witnessed. The Western wrangle of "There She Goes, My Beautiful World" references Morricone's desert cowboy groove against a swirling cacophony of drums, bashing piano, and the chorus swelling on the refrain, while Cave name drops Johnny Thunders and poet Philip Larkin. The pace is fantastic; its drama and musical dynamics are pitched taut, with lulls in all the right places. The Lyre of Orpheus, by contrast, is a much quieter, more elegant affair. It is more consciously restrained, its attention to craft and theatrical flair more prevalent. But that doesn't make it any less satisfying. It is a bit of a shock after Abbatoir Blues, but it isn't meant for playing immediately afterward; it is a separate listening experience. The title track tells the myth's tale in Cave's ironical fashion, where God eventually throws a hammer at the subject and Eurydyce threatens to shove his lyre up his nether orifice. Warren Ellis' swampy bouzouki and Thomas Wydler's more stylized drumming move the band in the tense, skeletal swirl where chorus and Cave meet the music in a loopy dance. But in "Breathless," the bard of the love song emerges unfettered at the top of his poetic gift. On "Babe You Turn Me On," he wraps a bawdy yet tender love song in a country music waltz to great effect. But on this album, along with the gentleness, is experimentation with textures and wider dimensions. The sparser sound is freer, less structured; it lets time slip through the songs rather than govern them -- check the wall of Ellis' strings married to a loping acoustic guitar on the moving "Carry Me" as an example. Cave's nastiness and wit never remains absent for long, however, and on "O Children," the album's closer, it returns with this skin-crawlingly gorgeous ballad of murder and suicide. This set is an aesthetic watermark for Cave, a true high point in a long career that is ever looking forward. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Everything on Nocturama sounds like something Cave has done before. "He Wants You" is a smooth love song, "Still in Love" is a gothic love song, and "Wonderful Life" has a nice, slinky beat and a memorable melody. There are also a couple of songs that revisit the old storm-and-bang days of the Birthday Party and early Bad Seeds. Add to that the racing tempos, jagged guitars, and shouted vocals of "Dead Man in My Bed" and the seemingly endless "Babe, I'm on Fire," which is a welcome blast of energy. ~ Slash Enburn, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
No More Shall We Part ends a four-year silence from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. A best-of was issued in 2000, but no new material has appeared since 1997's landmark album, The Boatman's Call. With that record Cave had finally delivered what everyone knew he was capable of: an entire album of deeply tragic and beautiful love songs without irony, sarcasm, or violent resolution. It appears that The Boatman's Call has altered the manner in which Cave writes songs, and the Bad Seeds illustrate them. Two musical directors -- the ubiquitous Mick Harvey and Dirty Three violinist Warren Ellis -- craft a sonic atmosphere whose textures deepen and widen Cave's most profound and beautiful lyrics to date. The ballads have the wide, spacious, sobering ambience one has come to expect from the Bad Seeds. There is an ethereal change in sound in the up-tempo numbers, which are, for lack of better terminology, musical novellas. They plumb the depths of blues, yet contain glissando and crescendos from the orchestral music of composers such as Fartein Valen and Olivier Messiaen. There are places, such as in "Oh My Lord," where rock & roll is evoked as a device, but this isn't rock music. A listen to "As I Sat Sadly By Her Side," "Hallelujah," and the aforementioned track (the most "rock" song here) will attest that it is merely one color on a musical palette that is more expansive now than at any time in the band's history. Also in the band's musical treasure trove is the addition of the McGarrigle sisters on backing vocals - nowhere is their contribution more poignant than on the tenderly daunting, haunted house that is "Love Letter." Lyrically, and as a vocalist, Cave has undergone a startling, profound metamorphosis. Gone is the angry, humorous cynic whose venom and bile touched even his lighter moments. His deep taunting ambivalence about Jesus Christ and Christianity in general is gone, vanished into a maturity that ponders spiritual things contemplatively. Humor that pokes fun "churchianity" remains, but not as a source of its inspiration. Over these 12 tracks, Cave has taken the broken heart--so openly exhibited on The Boatman's Call--and elevated it to the place where he has learned to live with, and speak from it as both an artist and a human being. Leonard Cohen stated in the song "Anthem," that, "there is a crack in everything/that's where the light gets in."No More Shall We Part is a mosaic of those cracks. If this album is about anything, it is about love's ability to survive in the world. It is examined concretely and abstractly; to the point where it meditates on this theme even cinematically. His methodology for the listener is, even though these are intimate conversations, the effect is illustrated in widescreen. In this way, Cave touches the heart in the same way Andrei Tarkovsky's films Stalker and The Sacrifice and Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire do. There is powerful emotion here, spiritual, psychological and romantic, without a hint of the sentimentality that would make it false. As both a singer and a songwriter, his work has been transformed into something so full of depth, color, and dimension, that there is simply no one except his mentors working on this level in popular music. In the opening moments of "As I Sat Sadly By Her Side," a tenderly, softly sung vocal delivers: "Then she drew the curtains down/And said when will you ever learn/That what happens there beyond the glass/Is simply none of your concern/God has given you but one heart/You are not a home but the hearts of your brothers/God don't care for your benevolence anymore/But he cares for the lack of it in others/Nor does he care for you to sit at/Windows in judgement of the world he created/While sorrows pile up around you/Ugly, useless and over-inflated/At which she turned her head away/Great tears leapin' from her eyes/I could not wipe a smile from my face/As I sat sadly by her side." The title track is a ballad that could have been lifted from The Boatman's Call, except it lacks the reaching tragedy. And Cave sings in a tenor no one thought him capable of -- "And all the birds will sing to your beautiful heart/Up on the bell/And no more shall we part." The chaos of earlier Bad Seeds outings does kick up on "The Sorrowful Wife," where violins and Blixa Bargeld's guitars duel with Jim Sclavunos's drums for domination of the sonic torrent. The record closes with two of Cave's most beautiful songs, a near country gospel waltz called "Gates to the Garden" with the McGarrigles sweetening an already lovely tome to redemptive love. Finally, "Darker With the Day," illustrated by Harvey's striking pianistic ballad framework touched by Bill Evans' technique, is as strikingly autobiographical as Cave has ever been, highlighting the extremes of good and evils that inform and torment the protagonist's inner emotional life within in a single day. There is loss and the seeking of deliverance and, in a statement not so much of recognition that this is simply fate, he also acknowledges hope: "All these streets are frozen now/I come and go/Full of a longing for something I do not know." As he calls to a lover gone seemingly forever, he comes to the conclusion that for him, redemption is in love itself, whether divine or profane; the only hope is that love, between two people or between an individual and her or his creator, depends on one's openness to receiving it. Who can argue with him? No More Shall We Part leaves listeners in awe, full of complex emotions, and pondering the notion that they've been in the presence of great redemptive art--which Henry James calls, "the thing that can never be repeated." ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'The Secret Life of the Love Song/The Flesh Made Word'
Release Date 1/1/2000
Tracks 2
Label King Mob
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What The Critics Say
This is a stunning recording -- stunning in the sense of its quality and its combination of philosophical soliloquy and heartbreaking music. It's also stunning in its effect upon the listener, rendering him or her mute -- stunned, as it were -- with reflection and awe. Combining two spoken-word pieces, one from the Vienna Poetry Festival and one from a BBC religion program, Cave manages to flesh out the spare poetry that is his songwriting by explaining the font from which it issues. God, madness, mourning, love, and wisdom are all explored here, with musical interludes on the first piece, "The Secret Life of the Love Song," that show the end product of all of this musing. Cave's words are like silent weights that sneak up and land in your lap, paralyzing you with their beauty and heft in a way that only occasionally happens with the songs that he has issued over the last 20 years. ~ Stacia Proefrock, All Music Guide
'And the Ass Saw the Angel'
Release Date 1/1/1998
Tracks 16
Label Mute
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What The Critics Say
Murder Ballads brought Nick Cave's morbidity to near-parodic levels, which makes the disarmingly frank and introspective songs of The Boatman's Call all the more startling. A song cycle equally inspired by Cave's failed romantic affairs and religious doubts, The Boatman's Call captures him at his most honest and despairing -- while he retains a fascination for gothic, Biblical imagery, it has little of the grand theatricality and self-conscious poetics that made his albums emotionally distant in the past. This time, there's no posturing, either from Cave or the Bad Seeds. The music is direct, yet it has many textures, from blues to jazz, which offer a revealing and sympathetic bed for Cave's best, most affecting songs. The Boatman's Call is one of his finest albums and arguably the masterpiece he has been promising throughout his career. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
In some ways, Murder Ballads is the record Nick Cave was waiting to make for his entire career. Death and violence have always haunted his music, even when he wasn't explicitly singing about the subject. On Murder Ballads, he sings about nothing but death in the most gruesome, shocking fashion. Divided between originals and covers, the record is awash in both morbid humor and sobering horror, as the Bad Seeds provide an appropriate backdrop for the carnage, alternating between blues, country, and lounge-jazz. Opening the affair is "Song for Joy," a tale from a father who has witnessed his family's death at the hands of serial killer. It is the most disturbing number on the record, lacking any of the gallows humor that balances out the other songs. Cave's duets with Kylie Minogue ("Where the Wild Roses Grow") and PJ Harvey ("Henry Lee") are intriguing, but the true tours de force of the album are "Stagger Lee" and "O'Malley's Bar." Working from an obscure, vulgar variation on "Stagger Lee," Cave increases the sordidness of the song, making Stagger an utterly irredeemable character. The original "O'Malley's Bar" is even stronger, as he spins a bizarrely funny epic of one man's slaughter of an entire bar. During "O'Malley's Bar," Cave and the Bad Seeds are at the height of their powers and the performances rank among the best they have ever recorded. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Keeping the same line-up from Henry's Dream, Nick Cave and company turn in yet another winner with Let Love In. Compared to Henry's Dream, Let Love In is something of a more produced effort -- longtime Cave boardsman Tony Cohen oversees things, and from the first track, one can hear the subtle arrangements and carefully constructed performances. Love, unsurprisingly, takes center stage of the album. Besides concluding with a second part to "Do You Love Me?," two of its stronger cuts are the (almost) title track "I Let Love In," and "Loverman," an even creepier depiction of lust's throttling power so gripping that Metallica ended up covering it. On the full-on explosive front, "Jangling Jack" sounds like it wants to do nothing but destroy sound systems, strange noises and overmodulations ripping throughout the song. The Seeds can always turn in almost deceptively peaceful performances as well, of course -- standouts here are "Nobody's Baby Now," with a particularly lovely guitar/piano line, and the brooding drama of "Ain't Gonna Rain Anymore." The highlight of the album, though, has little to do with love and everything to do with the group's abilities at music noir. "Red Right Hand" depicts a nightmarish figure emerging on "the edge of town," maybe a criminal and maybe something more demonic. Cave's vicious lyric combines fear and black humor perfectly, while the Seeds' performance redefines "cinematic," a disturbing organ figure leading the subtle but crisp arrangement and Harvey's addition of a sharp bell ratcheting up the feeling of doom and judgment. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Exactly what it says it is, and quite good at that -- some fans consider many of the songs on Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Live Seeds to be superior to their studio equivalent -- a testament to its overall quality. Recorded at various spots on the Henry's Dream tour and originally sold with a small picture book documenting said tour, Live features the same sextet that performed on Dream bringing the noise with commanding authority. Cave himself is unsurprisingly in excelsis, his declamatory and quieter sides both showcased with skill. Mick Harvey and Blixa Bargeld's guitar exploits, sometimes snarling with fire and other times strumming with deceptive calm, lead the charge from the rest, with the Thomas Wydler and Martyn P. Casey rhythm section ratcheting up the intensity, and Conway Savage's piano and organ work shading everything out. Three of the thirteen songs are from Dream, with the rest drawn from throughout Cave's solo career, including a dramatic version of "From Her to Eternity" that takes the 1987 re-recording as its start and gets an even more punishing makeover. Few cuts differ drastically from the more familiar album versions, but generally everything is crisper, at times much more brusque, perhaps exchanging texture for force. The opening performance of "The Mercy Seat" doesn't achieve the melodramatic power of the Tender Prey performance, but still makes for a fiery start, Cave's lyric of dues-paying via death delivered with the appropriate power. The Dream cuts arguably are the most different from their studio takes, given a more punchy approach all around, especially on "Brother, My Cup Is Empty." Other highlights include the beautiful passion of "The Ship Song," its tearjerking appeal fully intact, and the doom-laden "The Weeping Song," Bargeld and Cave's duet once again a striking fusion of voices. An end-of-the-night singalong take on "New Morning" concludes this striking record, definitely one of Cave's best. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
