If you want a lasting example of why quitting Class A drugs is a good career move, look no further than NICK CAVE. Sure, I grant you his heroin-addled Berlin period during the 80s had its' moments and culminated in the largely great "Tender Prey" album, but since cleanliness has sat next to Godliness with old Nick his artistic strike rate has gone up no end. Albums like "Let Love In", "The Boatman's Call" and last year's "Nocturama" bear this theory out in articulate spades.
Not that Cave's exactly turned into the neighbourhood's goody two-shoes (and in places again here he's still on texting terms with the horny-tailed man below), but his clear-headed workaholic tendencies continue to impress, and with "Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus" he has fashioned a sprawling, epic-sounding double album that will (again) challenge him when it comes to follow-up time.
The feverish, group-jam approach that yielded "Nocturama" is again the order of the day, and while Blixa Bargeld may finally have bowed out, the Bad Seeds' collective energy and discernment remains intact. Indeed, the classy romp of recent single "Nature Boy" suggested confidence was at an all-time high round the Seeds' towering mansion, and "Abattoir Blues" proves this was no false gesture.
This being Cave, it's a tad simplistic to suggest "Abattoir Blues" is exactly The Bad Seeds' garage rock album, as Nick Launay's lavish production and the presence of the London Community Gospel Choir ensure proceedings are hardly a ten-day stretch with Liam Watson at Toe Rag. However, the hipswingin', drama-pop of the single again rears its' head on tracks like the striking opener "Get Ready For Love", the nostril-flaring, evangelical excitement of "There She Goes, My Beautiful World" and the smoky, swashbuckling set-piece of "Let The Bells Ring."
The remainder of "Abattoir Blues" is more typical, menacing Cave, but no less captivating for that. "Cannibal's Hymn"- a distant relation of "Swagger Lee" - revels in its' ratchety guitar and Martyn Casey's swaying bassline and it's every bit as threatening as the title and chock fulla tension to boot. "Hiding All Away", meanwhile, is a clunking, lopsided blues lifted by the soulful gospel choir and The Bad Seeds bringing in a Hurrcane Ivan-strength crescendo redolent of "Loverman" at the end.
"Abattoir Blues" itself, though, is something of a departure. Based around the bastard of all breakbeats, it's Cave playing the typical would-be suitor, proffering wine, candles, meat cleavers at five paces and mass extinction. Mmm-hmm. The romantic old so and so. One assumes he's secreting the After Eights in his red right hand. Still, it's captivating stuff, as is the odd, Biblically-inspired "Fable Of The Brown Ape", which is very much Cave in literary mode ("They took the serpent outside, sliced it open with an axe and the ground it was soaked in the milk of human kindness") and recalling Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders Of The Rue Morgue" en route.
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Opening with "The Lyre Of Orpheus" itself, the second CD is a little less consistent, but still hits glorious heights on occasion. "Breathless" initially confounds, as it starts with what sounds like a woodwind section tuning up, but finally settles into a fetching acoustic groove with snatches of "Ruby Tuesday"-style flute. Again, it's something of a departure, as is the frantic piano foxtrot of "Supernaturally", which finds Cave relating a tale of love lost forever against a backdrop of death, exposure and polar bears. And Warren Ellis's gypsy violin. Which is a surefire good thing.
Elsewhere, "Spell" is wintry, quintessential Cave, with the choir adding spectral wonderment, while the grandiose "Carry Me" finds the strings flitting around like a flock of starlings and the choir wringing a heavyweight, Scott Walker-style set-piece from Cave. Really quite delectable.
Sadly, it doesn't quite maintain the heat. With it's "Oh Momma!" chorus, "The Lyre Of Orpheus" is yet another Biblical tale of murder, begatting and curious stringed instruments, but veers too close to pastiche for comfort, while the closing "O Children" is - as ever - rammed with portent ("Forgive us now for what we've done, it started out as a bit of fun"), but its' proto breakbeat, ominous drone and plodding rhythm ensure it merely drags. The nadir, though, is "Babe, You Turn Me On": a plangent ballad with an Elvis-style spoken verse. This is simply way too overwrought for it's own good, and while the lyric mentions "atom bomb", it goes off like a damp squib by Cave's exacting standards.
Still, a record with the stellar ambition of "Abattoir Blues/ The Lyre Of Orpheus" is entitled to the odd blemish and these minor blackspots do little to diminish the impact of yet another astonishing Nick Cave album. He's justifiably proud of it too, as he suggests on the reined-in melodrama of "Messiah Ward", when he croons: "I hope you're sitting comfortably, I've saved you the best seat in the house." Decent of you old boy, but then we're getting accustomed to being spoiled by you nowadays, aren't we?
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