Nick Cave—From Her to Eternity

Nick Cave—From Her to Eternity (1984)

From Her to Eternity—No band had as many meaningless name changes as Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Nick Cave's original band was called "The Boys Next Door," which ran from 1973–78 when they mostly played covers. That name stuck up through the release of Door, Door (1979)–The Birthday Party (1980), after which they adopted "The Birthday Party" as their new name. In late 1983, the Birthday Party apparently broke up, though that's not true to what really happened. The only effective change in the band was the departure of guitarist Rowland S. Howard; core members Nick Cave and Mick Harvey remained, and the rest of the band went through no more dramatic changes than they did as the Birthday Party. At this time, they began going by the names "Nick Cave—Man or Myth?" (technically a solo act) and "Nick Cave and the Cavemen" before finally settling on "Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds." However, the resulting album from this period, From Her to Eternity, would be billed on the cover simply as the work of "Nick Cave."

In fairness, the name changes came with pointed shifts in style. Cave's raving, drug-fueled persona was toned down in favor of a more literary bent, signaled by a doomful cover of Leonard Cohen's poetic "Avalanche." The disquieting "Cabin Fever!" is a mad excursion through the mind of a tattooed, mutilated ship's captain. The dark threnody "Well of Misery" plays almost like a slave song. "From Her to Eternity," co-written by Anita Lane, is a claustrophobic account of a misguided tryst. Side B contains three songs recorded earlier in the band's formation: "Saint Huck" is a Delta blues gutted and turned inside-out, "Wings off Flies" is a blackly humorous soliloquy of twisted yearning, and the dirge "A Box for Black Paul" tells the tale of a man scorned upon his death with racial implications.

One might assume from their descriptions that From Her to Eternity is not much different than the work of the Birthday Party. The best way to describe it, really, is that there was logical evolution going on from Junkyard (1982) to Mutiny/The Bad Seed (1983) to From Her to Eternity. Junkyard still featured an erratic, outrageous edition of Cave and the Birthday Party; the Mutiny and Bad Seed EPs retained that surface style, but with tighter arrangements and less screaming, perhaps in part due to Rowland S. Howard—who was principal songwriter along with Cave—being forced out in favor of Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten. From Her to Eternity is equally steeped in lunacy, but with a greater emphasis on Cave's piano playing, suggestions of the American South (which would be further explored more explicitly by the band in coming years), and an overall roomier, live sound. As for its quality, Eternity is not the sort of record to listen to for blind pleasure. It's moody and psychologically oblique, and the arrangements and sound affects are almost wholly subordinate to the feelings associated with the lyrics. Coming from a different band, this set-up might be a recipe for overindulgence, but Eternity is just modest enough to carry weight.

More Nick Cave reviews by The Old Noise:

as The Boys Next Door/The Birthday Party:

Door, Door (1979)
The Birthday Party (1980)
Prayers on Fire (1981)

Junkyard (1982)

as Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds:

From Her to Eternity (1984)
The Firstborn Is Dead (1985)
Kicking Against the Pricks (1986)
Your Funeral... My Trial (1986)
Tender Prey (1988)
The Good Son (1990)
Henry's Dream (1992)
Live Seeds (1993)
Let Love In (1994)
Murder Ballads (1996)
The Boatman's Call (1997)
No More Shall We Part (2001)
Nocturama (2003)
Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (2004)
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (2008)
Push the Sky Away (2013)
Skeleton Tree (2016)

as Grinderman:

Grinderman (2007)
Grinderman 2 (2010)

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Tender Prey

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Tender Prey

Tender Prey—The late 1980s were a busy time for Nick Cave. He and the Bad Seeds appeared in Der Himmel über Berlin as themselves, playing "The Carny" from their latest album, Your Funeral... My Trial (1986), he co-wrote the script and music of and starred in Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, and published both a book of collected works (King Ink, named for the Birthday Party song) and a novel (And the Ass Saw the Angel). The stress from all of it plus steady recording and touring took its toll on Cave and the band. Interviews from that time period paint Cave as paranoid, drug-addled, and nasty, and while some of it was certainly editorialization, Cave's long affair with heroin has been documented. Thus, Tender Prey came out messy, but ironically, it produced some of the band's most iconic songs.

Cave played a prison inmate in Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, and so being in that mindset wrote a number of prison songs for Tender Prey, though the subject was not entirely new for the band, whose prior album The Firstborn Is Dead (1985) was influenced by outlaw country. One of these songs is Cave's signature song, "The Mercy Seat," which is presented here in its original extended format, played at nearly every Bad Seeds concert since its creation. It's almost impossible to distinguish the instruments from one another at first—the ongoing march of Thomas Wydler's drums is surrounded by the weeping strings and Blixa Bargeld's barely audible slide guitar, occasionally flooded by Mick Harvey's and new member Roland Wolf's murderous guitar leads—to say nothing of Cave's lyrics, which make at least one offhanded reference to And the Ass Saw the Angel (or perhaps vice-versa) and depict a Christ-like figure who is set to die in the electric chair. The creepily sultry "Up Jumped the Devil" is quintessential Cave ("My blood was blacker than the chambers of a dead nun's heart") that takes its name either from Robert Johnson's "Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)" or the lyrics to "The Devil Went down to Georgia" (likely the former, considering Tender Prey's heavy blues context).

Bad Seeds standard "Deanna" is a reworking of "Oh Happy Day," which is better exemplified by the acoustic version that was later appended as a bonus 7" to The Good Son (1990). Its unclear story combines crass sex with crass murder; in live shows, Cave sings with more venom: "She was my fuckin' friend/She was my fuckin' partner," making it sound scornful rather than jaunty. "Watching Alice" is something of a murky failure, whose languid arrangement is even less interesting than the banal lyrics. The toiling "Mercy" is one of the better forgotten Bad Seeds songs, as is "City of Refuge," based on Blind Willie Johnson's "(I'm Gonna Run to) the City of Refuge" (itself based on the traditional "You Better Run"). "Slowly Goes the Night" is a quiet highlight, sending up schlock balladry Bad Seeds-style while retaining a certain charm in spite of itself. The clopping "Sunday's Slave" and onrush of "Sugar Sugar Sugar" are two of the album's more understated moments, although the former is stronger than that suggests. The waning drunkenness of "New Morning" bids farewell to the hellish themes of the album and foreshadows the direction of The Good Son.

The first phase of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' career (pre-The Boatman's Call [1997]) is often referred to as Cave's Old Testament period; never was that more fitting than with Tender Prey (Birthday Party albums aside). Although it's a messy record, and many of the songs were not performed or arranged optimally, as a sort of blueprint, it's rather solid. Some of the group's (and the Birthday Party's) earlier work was unfavorably circumspect, and the relative straightforwardness of Tender Prey was refreshing. It's not the best LP of that aforementioned period, but it's close, and it was the most rock and roll the band ever got during the Blixa Bargeld era.

More Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds reviews by The Old Noise:

From Her to Eternity (1984)
The Firstborn Is Dead (1985)
Kicking Against the Pricks (1986)
Your Funeral... My Trial (1986)
Tender Prey (1988)
The Good Son (1990)
Henry's Dream (1992)
Live Seeds (1993)
Let Love In (1994)
Murder Ballads (1996)
The Boatman's Call (1997)
No More Shall We Part (2001)
Nocturama (2003)
Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (2004)
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (2008)
Push the Sky Away (2013)

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Live Seeds

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Live Seeds

Live Seeds—It makes sense, in a perverted way, that a band with a reputation for fantastic live shows would not have many live albums. If the energy put off by the band is tough to encapsulate, perhaps it does it better justice to simply leave it alone. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and even predecessor the Birthday Party, released no live albums until 1994's Live Seeds. Of course, decision-making in these parts is often done by the label, who for whatever reason may have decided the Bad Seeds were not valuable in their live incarnation. Live Seeds doesn't radiate the quality of necessity like other live records—say, Nirvana's Unplugged in New York, which was unique for its vastly different arrangements and colorful selection of covers. Live Seeds is neither of those, but at the time, the Bad Seeds were making detours from their usual ferocious sound; The Good Son (1990) featured less rocking and more vibraphone, and Neil Young producer David Briggs gave Henry's Dream (1992) a questionably slick finish to even biters like "Jack the Ripper."

While Tender Prey often sounded more like a blueprint than an artistic statement, Live Seeds gives its songs a more developed, rounded coloration. Signature song "The Mercy Seat" has turned from a processional to an outburst in what may be its definitive recording, while Cave spits new ferocity on stalwart "Deanna." "New Morning," which once sounded like a drunken tribute, now positively sings with a sparser package, exhibiting just how sweet Cave's voice can be between screams. Dead ringer "The Ship Song" receives the same benefits, sounding less apprehensive without the bombast. Cave's and Blixa Bargeld's duet "The Weeping Song" sounds more natural; "The Good Son" instills the bloodthirstiness lacked by the album of the same name.

"John Finn's Wife," "Jack the Ripper," and even the weaker "Brother, My Cup Is Empty" are more explosive than they were on Henry's Dream, while "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry" and of course "Tupelo" prove they were meant for the stage. Amusingly, the iconic "From Her to Eternity" ends up being one of the least essential inclusions, neither complementing its studio incarnations nor supplanting them. Cover "Plain Gold Ring" is given a more dynamic working, falling a bit flat not because it doesn't gel with the Bad Seeds' style so much as it or probably any other version will never come close to Nina Simone's.

Live Seeds is aggravating at times because it feels as though these renditions should have characterized their original albums. However, for the listener, this is something of a welcome dilemma, offering a great snapshot of the Bad Seeds as they were at their '90s peak. Nick Cave compilations, given the insular nature of his proper albums, are ideologically questionable, but Live Seeds is a worthy catch-all and could even be a solid introduction to the band.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds—Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus

Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus—An artist that has been around for twenty-five years has probably already hit his or her peak. Even if they put out a particularly ambitious record, the work is generally relegated with bromide. Nick Cave has always had the advantage of not fitting into any particular musical world. His albums have never been held against an immutable benchmark like Exile in Guyville, Horses, or London Calling. It's rare to hear someone say, "He'll never make another Tender Prey," and maybe that's because Cave never made that perfect record in twenty-five years of service.

Twentieth-century Nick Cave was a mercurial being; each Bad Seeds record was its own beast right up until The Boatman's Call (1997), which read like a confessional. Often considered his best work, Cave took a left turn and wrote twelve deeply personal, affecting hymns and dirges as notable in their sincerity as they are in the absence of obscenity. He followed it up with No More Shall We Part (2001), a wintry but often cordial work that was a logical progression from its predecessor. That was unique for Cave and the Bad Seeds: for better or for worse, they never repeated a formula across consecutive albums. The diminished presence of Blixa Bargeld was becoming conspicuous as the band was beginning to sound less Einstürzende Neubauten and more like a church choir—or a Christian rock band, as they theoretically were at times. There was the return to straight rock of Nocturama (2003), but the material on that was less than captivating, and perhaps for these reasons, Bargeld decided to amicably separate from the Bad Seeds.

Bargeld, a founding member of the Bad Seeds, was certainly not expendable. His guitar work and other unique instrumentation made an irreplaceable impact on the Bad Seeds' first nine records. At the same time, the idiosyncrasies of the musical relationship between Bargeld and Cave had begun to hold back the evolution of the band. If there is one thing that Blixa Bargeld tends to resist in his music, it is beauty, and while this is not a bad thing in and of itself, the Bad Seeds were failing to sprout. Cave, having met the apparent love of his life in model Susie Bick, wanted everything to do with beauty in his art.

Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus marked the point at which Warren Ellis became the engine of the Bad Seeds. Bargeld largely stuck to the electric guitar and chose to make his ideas heard through that instrument and special effects; Ellis brought a vestigial quality to the band, playing the violin, accordion, and on this album the flute, mandolin, and bouzouki. On the surface, Abattoir does not sound terribly different from Nocturama, which is not surprising: the Bad Seeds' rhythm section remained the same, as did producer Nick Launay, who often chooses to mix Casey, Sclavunos, and Wydler in front of the rest. "Get Ready for Love" exemplifies this, blasting through the kingdom of Heaven: the bastard child of "Nobody's Baby Now" and "God Is in the House".

"Cannibal's Hymn" showcases the new Nick Cave, not gripping the wheel so tightly but retaining his knack for the bawdy metaphor, here one of his best. Cave paints an indecent picture of sirens swimming with sharks, watching each party marinate in merrymaking. He refers to himself with a key allegory: "a bird on a fence," after Cave declared he was resurrected as the "Black Crow King" back on The Firstborn Is Dead (1985). "Hiding All Away" is a hidden treasure, not impressing on the first few listens but eventually delighting with its subversively churlish limerick; Cave waxes prophetic, claiming "There is a war comin'." "Messiah Ward" echoes "People Ain't No Good" and "Where Do We Go Now but Nowhere?", in which he mentioned "[his] future wife," perhaps demonstrating that Cave does indeed possess formidable foresight. Ironically, "There She Goes, My Beautiful World" has less to do with his muse and more to do with a "TV Party"-esque breakdown of the fates of various authors, with the curiously incorrect "Johnny Thunders was half alive when he wrote 'Chinese Rocks.'"

Nick Cave once reportedly said that "any true love song is a song for God," but it's hard to imagine that Abattoir Blues' best song "Nature Boy" is a paean to God when Cave sings, "I was having thoughts that were not in my best interest to mention". "Abattoir Blues" is the Vonnegut-flavored counterpart to "Hiding All Away", hinting at an overall concept that suggests Cave's movement away from literature independent from the Holy Bible. "Let the Bells Ring" is his tribute to the recently-deceased Johnny Cash, a Cave idol and occasional collaborator, while "Fable of the Brown Ape" is reportedly his song to Blixa Bargeld, though the connection is unclear. Whatever the case, it marks the change in tone to the Lyre of Orpheus album, kicking off with title song "The Lyre of Orpheus," a modified version of an actual myth.

"Breathless" is a different spin on "Get Ready for Love," guided gently by the whimsical flute-playing of Warren Ellis. It flows naturally into "Babe, You Turn Me On," a more stripped-down affair with Cave providing "atom bomb" sound effects. "Easy Money" is a dense, rainy lament that suggests Let Love In; "Supernaturally" recalls these subjects and also those from the previous half of the album. It, "Spell," and "Carry Me" probably form the weakest segment of the set—The Lyre of Orpheus itself is certainly the lesser of the two albums, but even at its worst, it's refreshing to see Cave and the Bad Seeds able to crank out songs prolifically. "Quality over quantity" is normally a preferable approach in anything, but for Nick Cave, dispersing his designs more broadly actually allows the Bad Seeds to flourish; the advent of Abattoir/Orpheus has turned them into a more complete band rather than unilaterally submitting to the atmosphere of the music. When they need to, they can still do that, and it ends up making those songs even stronger due to dynamics: even the weaker songs here make the characters on The Good Son (1999) seem like cardboard cutouts.

"O Children" is not one of these weaker songs, and in fact may be the best or at least within striking distance. It featured in the seventh Harry Potter film, which is in truth not a bad fit, and a rare notable Cave appearance not involving "Red Right Hand." It has remained one of the Bad Seeds' mainstays over the years beyond its own supporting tour. Its all-girl backing vocal, trudging drums, and ethereal guitar help make it one of the best songs they've ever done.

Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus was a make-or-break record. If it turned out to be an hour-plus of Nocturama, it could have been a disaster for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. As it is, it ranks among other latter-day resurgences like Rust Never Sleeps. Is it that perfect record that eluded the band for so many years? Probably not, but double albums are rarely flawless, and Abattoir simply stands as an effort with a plethora of prime material, great to listen to at any volume, and a sign that there is life after death for a man obsessed with divine matters.