Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds "Abattoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus" (2004) - got it
I'm a big Nick Cave fan, but releasing a double album as a follow-up to
the uncharacteristically lacklustre "Nocturama" did not seem like the
best idea. But, this seems to be a case of something I've talked about
before, where artists can creatively fire up for a period of time (and
should probably mine that vein while they can) but then fizzle out in
others. Nick Cave was definitely on fire here.
The first disc (Abattoir) is all power, opening with the crash of high power gospel rocker "Get Ready For Love"
which I've always felt is about people missing out on everyday miracles
because they're too busy waiting for 'a sign'. The disc proceeds
through grinding twisted blues rock in "Hiding Away", upbeat melodic
rocking songs with "There She Goes My Beautiful World. It is
surprisingly short on fat ending on the uplifting "Let the Bells Ring" and then "Fable of the Brown Ape" that feels like it would fit nicely on 'Let Love Rule' next to a track like "Red Right Hand".
The second disc (Lyre) starts on a more sedate note with the unrelenting
murder-folk of the title track. A lighter folk informs the love songs
"Breathless" and "Babe You Turn Me On"
which features the gently murmured line "I put one hand on your round
ripe heart, and the other down your panties". Putting that line in a
love song just seems to nicely sum up Cave's mix of the
intimate/yearning and naughty/perverse. "Supernaturally" is nicely
propulsive piano-centred track and adds a little variety against the
first few quieter tracks.
This disc feels like maybe it could have lost a track and still been
pretty good, but maybe the mellower sound was just less gripping than
the bump and grind of Abattoir. It starts and ends well at least.
This was the band's first album without guitarist Blixa Bargeld. It
would be unfair to lay the success of this album and the inadequacies of
the previous release totally at Bargeld's door, but possibly removing
one cook helped improve the broth?
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