Review: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

You know Nick Cave right? Of course you do – he’s that dude that every guy wishes he was and girls… actually, after all this time I am not so sure as to what girls would want in particular from this monstrously awesome guy. At times I think Nick Cave’s life is a drama of existentialism, perpetrated knowingly by himself, and at other times the tragic quality of people’s reactions to his music (see the film He Died With a Falafel In His Hand for a particularly Australian depiction) show me that he taps into something much much deeper than a lot of people should ever go into their lives. And then there is his new album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

The latest Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is what I like to think of as a culmination of everything he has ever done, and yet more. In a recent Rolling Stone he is quoted as saying that Grinderman, his recent foray into cock-driven music, was like “that extra-marital affair that can put a bit of zing back into a relationship.” (RS676:52) And it definitely feels that Cave is enjoying all of the aspects of his music he has attempted over the years; the tongue in cheek, the sexual, the intellectual, the brash, the ballad and the groove. But at the same time, Cave is adamant that this is not old, rehashed styles of music heard before, but also new. He says in the same RS article that Orpheus was “the biggest selling record [they had] ever done… so I think it’s to our credit that we simply didn’t repeat ourselves.”

On the music, I think it is obvious that Cave’s work in cinema, both scripting and musical (The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) shows. The songs are palpably ready to be applied to imagery or film scenes. Obviously the folk tale-ish quality of Cave’s music has always presented this quality of story telling and thematic but even more so in this album. I am not entirely sure how to say it, it just is. The title track, Dig, Lazarus Dig!!! is cacophony of savage proportions that RS says could (and I agree) accompany a scene in a dive strip club with a pimp pushing his wares, with an inevitable evil waiting just around the corner. We Call Upon the Author gets an honourable mention; Nick Cave’s comments and thoughts on John Berryman and his death. Hold On To Yourself and Midnight Man are also standout tracks from this album. Hold On To Yourself is in the ilk of previous twisted, dark and moody songs, but is accompanied much more with the Badseeds, with Cave not so front and crooning, but raggard and stretched as is the music, making a truly heavy experience – which lets face it, is what you will always remember with Cave.

To be honest however, I think there a few low points on this album in Cave’s newly invigorated post-Grinderman phase. Today’s Lesson just doesn’t seem to hit the mark, and bites more than anything else. But not so much that you cannot appreciate it. Just an opinion I guess. You might not like Night of the Lotus Eaters, but when it’s Cave, you will learn to put up with surreal quasi-spoken word crazy shit like this. More News From Nowhere is definitely a fantastic closer for this album however. The instruments seem to sit back, a male chorus comes in, a few cool, almost acoustic Joy Division licks are put in and generally you can sit back and chill and be confident knowing that inviting Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! into your life wasn’t such a bad thing, especially if you were a bit put-off by the handlebar mo.

Will Sheff from Okkervil River recently commented in an interview with Triple J’s Richard Kingsmill that “there’s kind of like a savage, old testament quality to Nick Cave’s writing, which makes it so good when its good, and maybe sometimes what makes it overreach when it overreaches.” Nick Cave has always eluded me in terms of a summary. Boxes do not really apply, and I am not afraid of saying that some of the songs are virtually unlistenable, and so I think Sheff’s comment is spot on. And in reference to this latest album, it is true to a great extent. The savagery is there, but Cave has come to know how to harness it as an art form. In terms of vibe I would say in reference to Sheff’s Old Testament remark, (which was contextual to a conversation about how Cave’s savagery is an Australian reflection of a harsh deserted landscape) that this album feels more urban than I have ever felt before about one of his albums. So in conclusion I would rate it thusly:

4/5 for pre-established Cave/Badseeds fans

3.75/5 for relatively newcomers and those who came off the back of Abattoir Blues/Orpheus.

Don’t ask me why I have lumped people into these two marks – it just feels that way.

 

By Konrad Overdrive