Here’s the deal. You can have the full bells-and-whistles Nick & the Bad Seeds production with all its attendant kinetics and dynamics, staged in a high-ceilinged cow palace or festival tent, or you can take your chances on the more roughshod and ragged-gloried variety up close and in your face in Vicar St, which isn’t nearly as slick but affords plenty of rarified moments.
At the ripe old age of 50, when most of his peers are floundering in the doldrums, Nick Cave has hit a purple patch with Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, his most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album to date.
Nick Cave has confirmed that he and Warren Ellis will write the soundtrack to John Hillcoats forthcoming film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
Lifted from what is arguably his most aesthetically pleasing album to date, The Lyre Of Orpheus, Breathless is ripe with poetic finery and endless elegance. Although some prefer Caves tortured, writhing energy, this single proves that he can also turn his hand to a splendidly tender and touching acoustic love song. By contrast, There She Goes, My Beautiful World is a more upbeat though no less affecting affair, marrying Caves sombre baritone with the joyful sound of the London Community Gospel Choir. Predictably, its a near-perfect moment of life-affirming splendour.
From dark age to middle age, Nick Cave is such a far cry from the blood-spilling junkie of rock legend that these days you’re likely to encounter him commuting to his 9 to 5. Except of course that his job is writing and making music, his new album is called Nocturama and there are, he admits, some sizeable blow-outs in the memory banks.
I’d caution the casuals, but if you are a fan then dive straight in. You’ll love this rich stew of subtle pleasures and nocturnes that’ll ferment and season with each listening.
Senile old men, feline old women, pillars of society, killers in search of notoriety and *a guy wearing plastic antlers [who] presses his bum against the glass.* Times may change, empires may rise and fall, but the characters who populate Nick Cave's world remain as lunatic as ever.
Senile old men, feline old women, pillars of society, killers in search of notoriety and "a guy wearing plastic antlers [who] presses his bum against the glass." Times may change, empires may rise and fall, but the characters who populate Nick Cave's world remain as lunatic as ever.
