release date: Apr. 19, 1994
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,79]
producer: Tony Cohen & The Bad Seeds
label: Mute Records - nationality: Australia
Track highlights: 1. "Do You Love Me?" (4 / 5) - 2. "Nobody's Baby Now" - 3. "Loverman" - 4. "Jangling Jack" - 5. "Red Right Hand" - 6. "I Let Love In" - 8. "Ain't Gonna Rain Anymore" - 10. "Do You Love Me? (Part 2)"
8th studio album by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds released on Mute follows two years after the fine Henry's Dream - now with Australian producer Tony Cohen, who has worked with the band on several occasions as either producer (Kicking Against the Pricks' and 'Your Funeral... My Trial) or as engineer (also on the predecessor). Here Cave shows that he has evolved into a singer / songwriter territory but still maintains an "edge" to alt. rock, reflecting his roots in post-punk and noise punk carried out here as (theatrical) art rock or cabaret rock. He has always had a taste for (classic) epic drama and stories involving the true and big emotions. Following Henry's Dream, which I consider his best album, this came as a surprising change, and an embrace of a more mainstream-founded universe to satisfy a broader appeal. His backing band The Bad Seeds are still his Dark Knights making sure he doesn't sell out. I've always had mixed feelings about Nick Cave. I first came across his music when I listened to the debut with his Bad Seeds From Her to Eternity (1984), which I never really understood - I keep trying. His music with his former band The Birthday Party (Mick Harvey, guitarist of The Bad Seeds, was also part of that) were real noise rockers of the "we love Iggy and The Stooges, no wave punk rock, goth and glam and we're not afraid of doing hard drugs either", which was... dark and... bad, and... pointless, imho. Anyway, I like (some of) his stories, his ever-present embodiment of decay, but also at times find it a bit too theatrical, the staged imagery, being the "real bad man" trying to put him aside Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, or some American comic book spaghetti-western anti-hero. From this period and onward, he has developed into an acclaimed author, composer of film music, a true poet, singer / songwriter, and an emblematic figure fully embracing the style of both Leonard Cohen (epic songwriting), Johnny Cash (picking up the man's alter ego 'the man in black'), Tom Waits (the drunken Bohemian attitude and experimental jazz-rock and cabaret), Bertolt Brecht and Fassbinder (the avantgarde drama of modern realism), and all the lonesome cowboys of ancient America.
Basically, I find that Cave is good in small dozes, but I have also learned that I find him better now than I used to, so this album has evolved from being a 3-star album to a 4.
[ allmusic.com, NME 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]
