(Courtesy of Mute Records.)
Before we get started here, I feel I should tell you that Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is the first Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album I’ve ever heard. And so, I find myself facing the same conundrum that troubled my good friend and ThatRockBlog.com founder Benjamin Luk a month or so ago when he reviewed Daniel Johnston. Namely, how do you review an artist so prolific that their entire music output would take weeks of intense listening in order to truly appreciate and understand? Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is Nick Cave’s 14th studio album, and that’s not even touching upon his work with the seminal Australian goth-rock group The Birthday Party, or the many soundtracks and side projects he’s been involved with over the years.
But in a way, not knowing his previous work is a blessing. I won’t get bogged down in comparing this album to Cave’s reputed masterpieces (1997’s The Boatman’s Call or 1988’s Tender Prey), because I’ve never heard them. And I won’t have any existing biases either for or against the man and his music. Unburdened by expectation, I can simply talk about this album. And what an album it is.
It’s clear from the opening title track that Nick Cave is a man whose lyrical powers put him in rare company. That first song alone, in which Cave takes the Christian tale of the reincarnation of Lazarus and updates it for the modern era, features more imaginative storytelling than anything else I’m likely to hear this year. The fact that it does so while The Bad Seeds rock out like a bar band in a Bavarian circus make it a monster of a song.
Yet, the whole album is chock full of such tunes. “We Call Upon the Author” has guitars that sound like chainsaws and swirls of Doors-esque organs, while Cave burns through half-poetic, half-unhinged lyrics like, “Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought?”. The same song also sees fit to throw in such eccentric vocabulary as “myxomatoid”, “jejune” and “prolix”, the latter featuring prominently in the post-chorus breakdowns. “More News from Nowhere” on the other hand, is a fantastic closer in the tradition of Dylan’s “Desolation Row” and The Doors’ “The End”. I could rave more about the lyrics in this one but it’s Mick Harvey’s simple and elegant guitar line that steals the show.
As an album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is a cohesive work that ebbs and flows in its own psychotic tide. The knocks against it are slight, but apparent nonetheless. With such long and involved lyrics, the melodies inevitably suffer, though The Bad Seeds make up for it enough musically so it doesn’t become a major sticking point. However, songs like “Midnight Man” and “Hold On to Yourself” are too pedestrian for a man of Cave’s genius, and keep Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! from reaching the stratosphere.
That said, this is far and away the best of all the albums I’ve reviewed to this point for ThatRockBlog.com, and I relish the opportunity to throw myself into Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ storied back catalogue.
But in a way, not knowing his previous work is a blessing. I won’t get bogged down in comparing this album to Cave’s reputed masterpieces (1997’s The Boatman’s Call or 1988’s Tender Prey), because I’ve never heard them. And I won’t have any existing biases either for or against the man and his music. Unburdened by expectation, I can simply talk about this album. And what an album it is.
It’s clear from the opening title track that Nick Cave is a man whose lyrical powers put him in rare company. That first song alone, in which Cave takes the Christian tale of the reincarnation of Lazarus and updates it for the modern era, features more imaginative storytelling than anything else I’m likely to hear this year. The fact that it does so while The Bad Seeds rock out like a bar band in a Bavarian circus make it a monster of a song.
Yet, the whole album is chock full of such tunes. “We Call Upon the Author” has guitars that sound like chainsaws and swirls of Doors-esque organs, while Cave burns through half-poetic, half-unhinged lyrics like, “Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought?”. The same song also sees fit to throw in such eccentric vocabulary as “myxomatoid”, “jejune” and “prolix”, the latter featuring prominently in the post-chorus breakdowns. “More News from Nowhere” on the other hand, is a fantastic closer in the tradition of Dylan’s “Desolation Row” and The Doors’ “The End”. I could rave more about the lyrics in this one but it’s Mick Harvey’s simple and elegant guitar line that steals the show.
As an album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is a cohesive work that ebbs and flows in its own psychotic tide. The knocks against it are slight, but apparent nonetheless. With such long and involved lyrics, the melodies inevitably suffer, though The Bad Seeds make up for it enough musically so it doesn’t become a major sticking point. However, songs like “Midnight Man” and “Hold On to Yourself” are too pedestrian for a man of Cave’s genius, and keep Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! from reaching the stratosphere.
That said, this is far and away the best of all the albums I’ve reviewed to this point for ThatRockBlog.com, and I relish the opportunity to throw myself into Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ storied back catalogue.
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