Nocturama

Ah, Nick. It’s your good self again. 2001’s No More Shall We Part took four years to follow The Boatman’s Call, but now the hiatus has been halved by the efficient turn around of the twelfth Bad Seeds studio collection for our listening pleasure.

Some pleasure, you might retort, as many will regard a Nick Cave album as the last thing they’d need in January, of all months. It’s astonishing just how many highbrow pundits still view Cave as some kind of angst-ridden Goth, fixated as they are on a pathetic caricature that facilitates swift dismissal and easy categoristation.

Some reviews of No More Shall We Part didn’t just miss the nuances of that album, but pretty much his entire career since The Birthday Party. The man himself best answered these persistent misconceptions; “If music is truly great, then it can be nothing but a celebratory thing.” On Nocturama, Nick has climbed his tower of strength. The celebration is all ours.

That defining moment comes in ‘Bring It On’. Nick the comforter vows to take every tiny fear, shattered dream, little scheme and fallen tear and to scatter them into the sea. But it isn’t exactly a chest-beating paean to resilience either: “Ah, you’re trembling/And I’m trembling too/To be perfectly honest I don’t know quite what else to do.” Yet there is a quality in this new register – maybe just a slight quiver in the chorus – which marks something new, bold and brilliant in the Cave canon.

As you’d expect, that familiar, awesome line up makes up the Seeds cast – Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Conway Savage, Thomas Wydler, Warren Ellis, Martyn P. Casey and Jim Sclavunos. They’re joined by all four surviving Blockheads, Johnny Turnbull, Norman Watt-Roy, Mickey Gallagher and Chas Jankel, for some great booming male choir action.
Nick cracks open Nocturama with ‘Wonderful Life’, a cautious but firm declaration of positivity. Then, marital bliss is alluded to on ‘Rock Of Gibraltar’, “The best thing I done/Was to make you the one/Who I’d walk with down to the altar.”

Cave is one of our best living lyricists, a fact recently underlined by the publication of the Penguin anthology of the complete lyrics and The Secret History Of The Love Song lecture. The sprawling closing epic ‘Babe, I’m On Fire’ is awash with a relentless barrage of classic verses. “The drug-addled wreck with a needle in his neck says it/The drunk says it/The punk says it/The brave Buddhist monk says it/Babe, I’m on fire.” We even get “My mate Bill Gates says it” – the Microsoft giant probably being the only man alive who can secure the services of Bob Dylan and Nick Cave for his birthday soiree.

Nocturama is a slow burner. Initially, it doesn’t seem to hold a candle to No More Shall We Part or The Boatman’s Call and admittedly, it never does quite reach those twin peaks. There are shades of Let Love In, especially in ‘Dead Man in My Bed’ and ‘Babe, I’m On Fire’ glowing with the fire and brimstone of ‘Jangling Jack’ or ‘Thirsty Dog’. One often forgets just how good a rock n’ roll band the Bad Seeds really are.

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. Welcome back Nick.