Nick Cave is the devil, with an intelligent and sly sense of humor, all of which is on display in his new album, Dig Lazarus Dig!!!. Never has Armageddon been so much hilarious fun.
The album, in which Cave teams up with his longtime band mates, the Bad Seeds, is one of his very best. It rips through eleven songs, all with lyrics that are dark, poetic, and funny, and music that is also sensational. The title track resurrects Lazarus or “Larry,” as Cave likes to refer to him, from the New Testament and takes him on a hysterical modern day journey to New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and then back to the grave, all with a driving beat that never lets up.
All of the other tracks are equally impressive. The album then drives forward at rapid speed with such songs as “Midnight Man” in which Cave soulfully growls, “Everybody’s coming round to my place!”, and dares you not to sing along. Cave has always been fascinated with death and that theme continues in the song “Albert Goes West,” a travelogue helped along by scrappy and distorted guitar. In “We Call Upon the Author to Explain,” Cave rants about pretension, self-absorption, and maybe some of his peers: “Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can’t fix!, Bukowski was a jerk!”
Not all of the songs are scorchers. Cave can also be quite a romantic, in his own bizarre way, as evidenced by songs such as “Lie Down Here (& Be My Girl)” and “Jesus Of The Moon”.
I was also fortunate enough to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds play at the Warfield in San Francisco on September 20. There is no question that, even at fifty, Cave can rock better than performers half his age.
The Bad Seeds played a set that included many songs from Dig Lazarus Dig!!!. It also highlighted numerous songs spanning from their years together, from the up-tempo rollicking Deanna to slowing it down for The Weeping Song.
Playing with Cave were the likes of Warren Ellis, a virtuoso lead guitarist, who could pass for Raputin with his long beard, but who fit in perfectly behind the devilish Cave. Ellis is a main collaborator of Cave’s, who has worked with him on numerous side projects like The Grinderman and two soundtracks for the films The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and The Proposition (which Cave also wrote).
The stage ensemble also included two drummers, a bassist, a piano player, and a crazed maraca shaker who seemed to be playing half the time and the other half just going wild.
Anyone familiar with Cave’s previous work will be pleased with the new album. Newcomers to Cave will be in for a delightful surprise. Anyone Cave tempts into hell is lucky to go with him. Make a deal with the devil and you will not be disappointed.
The writer also recommends The Best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: From Her to Eternity.