As Patchy As Kat Slater's Tan (Nocturama - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds)

Member Name: Glory_FishesII

Product:	Nocturama - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Date:	12/08/04 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Babe I'm on fire

Disadvantages: Some weaker tracks

Who the heck are they ?

Well the Bad Seeds line up is quite fluid, strangely Nick Cave is always Nick Cave. On this particular outing the musicians are:

Nick Cave: Vocals, Piano, Hammond
Mick Harvey: Guitar, Organ, Bass Percussion
Blixa Bargeld : Pedal Steel Guitar, Guitar
Thomas Wydler: Drums, Percussion
Martyn P Casey : Bass
Jim Sclavunos : Percussion, Drums
Warren Ellis : Violin

This is the twelfth Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds CD.


Track Listing:

1. Wonderful Life 6/10

'Plunge your hands into the water
And drown it in the sea
There will be nothing between us, baby
But the air that we breathe
Don't cry
It's a wonderful, wonderful life'


Mellow with bits of swooping guitar that could melt butter. Gentle drums with melodic sections of piano as Nick positively croons about how fantastic life can be ''If you can find it''.. this song then shifts to a familial bridge of declarations of undying love. At first listen I found this song more than a little alarming and considered it to be the type of song nice old ladies eat crumpets to and chatter about how well balanced Nicolas Edward Cave has become... but the drum work is strangely chilled and life affirming and although it may seem a little trite and middle aged it is still nicely done. Almost too nice.

2. He Wants You 4/10

'Under the bridge and into your dreams he soars
While you lie alone in that idea-free sleep of yours
That you've been sleeping now for years'

Piano and brushed drum beats with a lovely lacing of strings as Nick continues to croon almost too contentedly for the passionate lyrics. Something about this whole affair doesnt seem quite natural. The passion seems almost pale when compared to earlier NIck Cave and The Bad Seeds ''love'' epics. The strings just about rescue it.

3. Right Out of
Your Hand 6/10

'The airborne starlings circle
Over the frozen fields
The hollyhocks hang harmlessly
And the old lion yields'


This opens a little more fragmented and bleak than the opening tracks. Thank God. But this isnt anything musically that we havent heard before with the familiar vocal echo present in a lot of Bad Seeds tracks. The strings are stronger than the previous track with the piano delivering some depth and perhaps some real emotion. In fact I personally think that this is one of , if not the understated jewel of the CD, the use of language in the lyrics makes me think of a bygone era, they are almost Blake like and its simplicity is endearing, whereas the closing instrumental is strangely overblown in comparison.


.4 Bring It On. 7/10

'The geraniums on your window sill
The carnations, dear, and the daffodil
Well, they?re ordinary flowers
But they long for the light of your touch
And of your trembling will
Ah, you?re trembling still
And I am trembling too
To be perfectly honest I don?t know
Quite what else to do'


Opens slowly, almost teasingly with a lone chord and a sprinkle of the drums and guitar and as the organ kicks in you become aware that this song has a real pace about it with an almost porn star cluck about the guitar. This is a lyrically delicate song which also shakes it's pelvis and dares you to love it. Ahhhhh maybe there is some life left in the old dog yet as the strings become almost like a hurricaine and you are far away from Kansas City.


5. Dead Man In My Bed 8/10

'Now she?s in the kitchen, rattling those pots and pans
I?d cook him something nice, she said, but he refuses to wash his hands
He used to be so good to me, now he smells so fucking bad
There is a dead man in my bed, she said'

A bit Charlatans in the hammond Eh? What the hell is going on here? Thi

s is a very energetic little number returning to Nick's morbid fascination. Whether the man is metaphorically dead in the marriage or actually deceased is another thing, but I like to visualise the corpse amid all these very eclectic and frantic noises. Call me sick but it makes me laugh, The hammond is mental, the drums aren't sane, the lyrics are sick....... welcome back Nick.

6 Still In Love.4/10

'And I say to the sleepy summer rain
With a complete absence of pain
You might think I?m crazy
But I?m still in love with you'


Bleak and slow, the CD stuns you into silence with this introspective tale of a crime scene..... this is a bit whiney to be honest and I'm starting to think that Nick may be a bit Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen at this point. (Gasps) And he is once again rescued by the Bad Seeds


7. There Is A Town 4/10

'And now I live
In this town
I walk these dark streets
Up and down, up and down
Under a dark sky
And I dream
That one day
I?ll go back home'


Lyrically this song is quite bland, but the way the piano trickles makes the tune run down your throat and into your midbrain. It's almost sinister, with great waves of guitar and strings and this is perhaps irt's only saving grace.

8. Rock of Gibraltar 2/10

'The best thing I done
Was to make you the one
Who I?d walk with down to the altar'

Dire rhyme scheme. Shame shame shame on you as the seagull like guitar bring the salt on the air but this song makes me want to throw myself off the said rock in despair. It's not that I don't want him to be happily married, but for crying out loud, when a man uses the word's ''Malta'' ''altar'' and ''Gibraltar'' you begin to feel that ''something's rotten in the state of Denmark''

9. She Passed B
y My Window 2/10

'For apple, plum and brand new pear
Soon wither on the ground
She slapped the snow from off her glove
And moved on without a sound'


Absolutely nothing to say about this one. Cliche cliche cliche once again saved by the strings. Poop as it could be quit a nice little tale really but I suppose we should be glad that she made it past the window alive.


10. Babe, I'm On Fire 8/10

'The drug-addled wreck
With a needle in his neck says it
The drunk says it, punk says it
The brave Buddhist monk says
Babe, I?m on fire
Babe, I?m on fire

Hit me up, baby, and knock me down
Drop what you?re doing and come around
We can hold hands till the sun goes down
Cause I know
That you
And I
Can be
Together
Cause I love you '


Not since O Malley's bar have my ears been so welcomingly made to bleed from the lyrical assault of the evil couplets. Boundless, chaotic madness that has made many a houseguest of mine walk out and wait for me in the garden. As this almost perverse declaration of passion storms into the room, masturbates on your couch and doesn't skip a breath. Fantastic. Nails down the blackboard strength guitars with heart attack drums and an amost rabid vocal amongst some of the most frenetic hammond. And the lyrics are laugh out loud funny or shockingly observant around an ardent chorus. You are absolved of the sin of using the word babe in a lyric Mr Cave and I also forgive you for the fact that it lasts fifteen minutes too (although my house guests don't)

Overall:

This is a quite patchy offering that relies a lot upon the conributions of Blixa Bargeld and Warren Ellis in particular as the vast body of work does not seem to be as lyrically sharp as we are used to, but I would consider this to be his most natural work yet, it is almost like a Ted Hughes anthonology with it's refe
rences to flowers and beasts and the natural world. This CD takes real patience and that is not a bad thing, it is strange however that his less jaded works, seem more of a challenge in lots of ways, perhaps it is because we as listeners are accustomed to him being in a unnaturally dark world....


I do like this CD a great deal but I would not recommend this to a new listener of Cave and The Bad Seeds, instead I would point them in the direction of The Best of... or anything by The Birthday Party and would urge you to take it yourself from there, as the back catalogue of this artist and his collaborators has something for everyone....... even Shrek 2 !

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