The Observer, April 4, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 23
From murder to the Bible: Nick Cave's new evolution
In the song "Today's Lesson," Nick Cave sings in the chorus, "We're gonna have a real good time tonight." It's hard to believe that this is the same guy who once wrote an entire album of murder ballads and started another off with the phrase "Hands up: who wants to die?!" but it has happened here. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is Cave's most upbeat and accessible album to date. While "upbeat" and "accessible" have never been words that have aptly described Cave's music, the album still thrives off of Cave's excellent songwriting skills. Because of them, it works wonderfully.
Between 2004's fantastic double album, Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus and Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, Cave and three of his Bad Seeds formed the side project Grinderman and released an album in 2007. Grinderman stripped down Cave's grandiose arrangements and melancholic lyrical content to deliver a loud, turbulent album of garage rock. Because of this, Lazarus owes far more of its aesthetic to Grinderman than to earlier Bad Seeds albums, replacing piano with organ and adding plenty of distorted guitars and loops to the mix. This album also solidifies the heavy presence of multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, who has taken the place of Blixa Bargeld as Cave's musical right-hand man. Bargeld, who despised traditional rock and roll styles, left the band in 2003, leaving Ellis to step up and embrace the conventions of rock music. The end result is a Nick Cave who doesn't hesitate to sing "sha la la."
This may come as a shock and even a disappointment to those who remember him as the gothic frontman of the Birthday Party in the early 1980s. But although his style has certainly changed, his songwriting hasn't. Cave is still as literate and intuitive as ever, and each song on Lazarus wraps itself around his sophisticated lyrics. The title track retells the Biblical story of Lazarus in a modern setting, leaving the reincarnated character to the pratfalls of being a celebrity, lost in the modern world. The album's stately closer, "More News From Nowhere," retells the Odyssey from a first person point of view, depicting Odysseus as a confused and disheartened hero. Cave even takes old clichés and traverses new territory with them. On "We Call Upon the Author," he asks God about all of the atrocities in the world. While this is hardly a new concept, Cave's literary prowess makes the subject seem particularly profound.
As far as music is concerned, the general sound of the album owes far more to garage rock than any of the Bad Seeds' previous material, particularly on the title track and "Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)," but the album is far more diverse than its feel implies. The album's ballads "Hold On to Yourself" and especially "Jesus of the Moon" rank among Cave's best, and "Moonland" has some traces of funk in its composition. For those who miss the days of From Her to Eternity or The Firstborn is Dead, there's the minimalist and disturbing "Night of the Lotus Eaters," where Cave warns his listeners, "Get ready to shield yourself."
At the very least, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is driving music for intellectuals, but with an intellectual like Nick Cave at the helm, it turns out to be far more than that. Fans who cherish songs like "The Mercy Seat" and "Loverman" will be turned off at first, and most of his fans probably still long for another violent, minor key epic. Until then, this album sees Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds continue to push forward, adding another welcome release to one of the most consistently excellent discographies in popular music.
