Bad Seeds, Nick Cave - No More Shall We Part
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Free Music Notes for No More Shall We Part
Free Music Review: Another Masterpiece...
Hit: 5 Stars
I was sceptical, I mean, how could he out do the Boatman's Call? Well, I won't say this is better, and it is by no means worse. It is simply, another masterpiece. I was glad to see Nick's songs changing a bit. Oh, the piano ballads are there and they are incredible (No more Shall we part, Till we came along this road, Sweetheart come). But we see a return of Nick the rocker a bit too. Oh My Lord, while it'll remind you of the Mercy Seat, it stands on its own and displays one of Nick's strongest musical climaxes. The production is beautiful. This truly is a different world, a new experience. There's a lot more orchestration but Nick and the Piano is still at the forefront, leading the way. Every song has a sad and mournful feel despite the extra musicians. And the sequencing (order of songs) is masterful. Beginning with the perfect introduction, then the best climax, Till We Came along This Road (another Murder Ballad, perhaps his most beautiful) and Darker With the Day is a perfect finale song, a definite Tom Waits sound.
The lyrics are not as personal as Boatman's Call, so it doens't pack as much of an emotional wallop as a whole, excepting for a few songs that will bring the tears. There's even some humor (God is in the House) Nick the storyteller is back and...
If you've heard the album, you might have noticed, I believe this album has a storyline. Read the lyrics in order and see if you notice that. Notice how in two songs the narrator has a nurse. Notice how in one song he says to his wife, "if he touches you again with his stupid hands, his life won't be worth living" and in another song he murders his wife's lover. Notice how he takes three walks during the album and how the final song begins, "as so with that, i took my final walk." and many other reasons, conncections. yes i truely believe this is a concept album.
But anyway, i would even recommend this album to first time listeners because it 1) brilliant 2) carries every possible side of Nick, at his best without seeming like a hodge-podge of different styles, everything fits together nicely 3) while it is remincient of older stuff, it is certainly not a retread. These are new songs and some of his best. this is one of his masterpieces, an incredible experience that will leave you emotionaly exhausted. While Boatmans' call might be your favorite nick cave, i have no doubt this will be right along side it, it is for me.
Free Music Review: The Strawberry Mambas
Hit: 5 Stars
When I was a kid, I used to get this candy called Mamba, which contained soft fruit candy of different flavors. But there was only one flavor I yearned for: Strawberry. The rest was only okay at best, but the Mamba strawberry candies were what made the whole package worth it. And I could bare the rest, as long as the few strawberries were there for me to eat at the end.I feel the same way about No More Shall We Part in a musical sense. By the end of the album, some of the songs drag and go on for too long. Others tend to sound similar to tracks that came only two songs before it. But Nick Cave more than makes up for it with the small bits of strawberries he sprinkles within the album. Listen to "Love Letter," possibly the the most gorgeous song Cave has yet written, both in melody and prose (both juxtaposing into each other perfectly). Or take the rockers "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow" and "Oh My Lord," where Cave demonstrates how absolutely powerful he is in his songwriting and vocals. And after about four nearly dead tunes, No More Shall We Part concludes, almost apologetically, with "Darker With the Day," a song that will be front-runner in the second Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Greatest Hits album.
Even when the songs as a whole don't work, Cave's poetic lyrics do, as his fans could testify. One trait I have always admired in Cave is his willingless to draw inspiration from any source, even the Bible. Here, Cave reaches into his spiritual gut more than ever, using religious words like he was doing Christian album, yet exposing many of fundamentalist drivel for what it really is. "God is in the House," probably one of the smartest songs Cave has ever written, brilliantly reveals the hypocrisy present in many so-called "perfect" church-going people today, with Cave singing about a town where "there's no place for crime to hide" and "all the kittens are bred white, so we can see them in the light." Funny and insightful, as always.
Nick Cave is one of the truest, sincere searchers in the music industry. Purchase No More Shall We Part, then do yourself a favor and search for other Cave releases. Find the strawberries.
Free Music Review: Just Lovely
Hit: 5 Stars
As a Nick Cave fan, some things disconcerted me upon first listening to this album - one being the lack of the bombast that I have come to enjoy from him, the cabaret-carnival-from-hell kind of intensity. This album is somehow more muted than the albums it follows. And yet, somehow it is more affecting for this restraint.For example, the backup singers bothered me a lot the first time they came in. Away, evil backup singers striking strange tonal notes that scare me! In time, I realized that these were some of the most memorable moments on the album - the closing of "Hallelujah," the bridge to "And No More Shall We Part", the chorus to "Darker With the Day". They accompany Nick's voice brilliantly, and sound pretty damn cool on their own. If they had their own cd, I would buy it. Provided Nick Cave wrote the music, of course.
The whole ensemble sounds great, particularly the new violinist whose name escapes me. I'd like to shake his hand just for the haunting opening for "Hallelujah." The band doesn't really come out to play all that much, though -- the album is mostly Nick, the piano, and some atmosphere. None of the tracks saving perhaps "Oh My Lord" quite reach the ferocity of some of his past work, but there are some wonderful ballads here. The album holds together VERY nicely, and I find something new to like each time I hear it.
There is one drawback: the lyrics, at times, bother me. Whenever I hear the line "I passed the cow and the cow was brown" I really want to kick Nick Cave and tell him he can do better than that. There are quite a few repeated images, such as kittens, nurses, and at least three songs describing "going for a walk", that you could refer to as an album motif but I would refer to it as annoying. If I could give a 4 1/2 rating, I would do that for this reason. However, despite this weakness, I still strongly recommend the album. The lyrics that are bad are pretty bad, but the lyrics that are good are very, very good. Cave is a fine songwriter and he sounds better than ever here. "Love Letter", in my opinion, is one of his finest songs, and NMSWP his finest album.
Free Music Review: Cave's "Blood on the Tracks"
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a great album. The intelligence of the lyrics alone put this up there with Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks," but it's more personal, and thus more immediate than even that great Dylan effort (and Cave's a better singer). The religious themes of Cave's songs (often allegories, such as "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow"(spiritual blindness)) may take some listener's by surprise, but song craft and story telling quickly take over. In many of the songs, the gentle harmonies of Anna and Kate McGarrigle wrap around Cave's singing, elevating them even further. This assistance is particularly dramatic in "O My Lord." I think it's fair to assume that Nick Cave, at this point in his career and life, is a Christian. But he's the kind of Christian that doesn't seek a comfortable faith. Like Simone ("Waiting For God") Weil, he sees the importance of the outcast, the outsider, who believes, but on terms that are true to themselves - and to God. The lyrics of "God is in the House" takes direct aim at suburban churchgoers who seek a fear-free life in their "little church," which is of course painted white. Putting God in a manufactured box is ridiculous, and that is Cave's sarcastic point. But sarcasm is only a small part of "No More Shall We Part." Overall, there is the sense of hard won truths in an ongoing journey, delivered beautifully for the listener to ponder over, and maybe even as prompt toward prayer.
As a side note, in a way it's a shame that there's been such controversy over whether or not Evanescent is a "Christian" band (read the lyrics, not their public statements), though I think the controversy is rooted more in that group's hesitancy on how to respond, and whether the wrong response would thus kill their just-starting careers . Evanescent could take some tips by looking at the careers of Nick Cave, T-Bone Burnett, Julie (and Buddy) Miller, the late Johnny Cash, and others (Dylan?). Amy Lee, it's OK to believe - and rock. Stay true, the rest will sort itself out.
Free Music Review: Another powerful musical document
Hit: 5 Stars
This is a great release by a seminal artist. Cave and cohorts hardly seem capable of producing anything but top quality, emotionally wrenching and--perhaps strangely--ultimately uplifting music. The liberating quality of the work seems to derive from Cave's willingness to delve into the sobering existential facts of life and face them straight on. There's courage for you, even if what gets dredged up isn't always pretty. There is room for love and redemption, though, even if these qualities only appear in shadow form as the silent, implicit images reflected obliquely in contrast to the more prominent grim and gritty reality that defines Cave's ethos. For every murderer with a murder ballad, there's a creeping lover, heart filled with passion, gliding in the background hoping to make sense of this world. I'm not suggesting that Cave dwells on the bright side of life, simply that you can't have dark without light, murder without love, etc. Not to quibble, but something a previous reviewer (three or four reviews below) mentioned bears response. To call Cave's piano playing "amateurish at best" really fails to look beyond the surface of the compositions to appreciate the accumulative impact of the sound. As we know, virtuosity frequently results in shallow, masturbatory "hot licks" devoid of any spiritual center. Guitarists are especially prone to this error, tearing off technically accomplished riffs that, for me, often mean nothing.
The Velvet Underground, for instance, only knew how to play their instruments on a basic level, yet so many of their songs remain absolutely vital today. Why? Because the overall composition rang with truth. Even if one argues that Cave's piano is hardly Carnegie Hall stuff, you would have to be deaf to miss the underlying gestalt that creates his band's powerful musical documents.
In an age filled with pretenders, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are the genuine article.