Murder Ballads - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Everone knows Nick Cave can be drark in his epic song writing. However, how dark is answered in this ten track album centred on the art of murder and all things gruesome. Yet Cave doesn't go for a barrage of grotesque lyrics like some sort of Heavy Metal word-spewer but forms his dark, devious thoughts into ten uniquely melancholic songs drenched in as much humour as blood. The album's opener has an eerie backbeat which sets the tone for the album where as 'Stagger Lee' tells the traditional story of a drunken cowboy with Cave's own darkened humour thrown in. Track three, another Lee (Henry), sees him team up with PJ Harvey and yet this isn't even ...  Read the complete review

Murder Ballads is the ninth album by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. It is the album on which their truly malevolent style of song writing reaches an almost sadistic level of competency. As the name of the LP quite rightly leads you to believe, this is indeed a concept album built around a selection of murder ballads. During the album's running time various members of the human race are dispatched in increasingly imaginative ways. Somewhat surprisingly, Murder Ballads has been the band's greatest commercial success to date. There is no doubt that this is part due to the repeated air play that Where the Wild Roses Grow received on channels such as MTV. MTV even ...  Read the complete review

This is the first Nick Cave album I bought many many years ago. I now have them all and Murder Ballads is still my favourite. As the title suggests all 10 songs are to do with death and killing. Lovely. What a joyous theme. The thing is these songs are good fun because the lyrics are jam-packed with dark humour and Nick Cave has a knack of making cliched, cringe-worthy lines and rhymes sound pretty damn cool. The stand out track for me is Stagger Lee which contains some pretty foul lyrics and is packed full of violence, describing a wild west gunslingers exploits - all whores and shootings. The album features a number of guest ...  Read the complete review