Disc 308 is...Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
Artist: Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
Year of Release: 2008
What’s Up With The Cover?: Not much. This reminds me of the cover for Tom Waits' "Big Time" with the 'name in lights' thing. I don't like this cover, and would've preferred this photo of Nick Cave from the liner notes:
Nick Cave is the perfect combination of weird and dangerous. He doesn't make me want to be a better man, but he does make me wish I could grow a better moustache.
How I Came To Know It: Sheila got introduced through a great recommendation from the folks at Ditch Records (Go Ditch!), when they put us on to "The Boatman's Call (reviewed way back at Disc 13). "Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!" was just me buying his latest release.
How It Stacks Up: We have six Nick Cave albums (we had 7, but I sold the atrocious "The Firstborn Is Dead" shortly after getting it. Of the six I still have, competition is fierce, but I think I'll put "Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!" in at 4th or 5th.
Rating: 4 stars.
Nick Cave is not to everyone's tastes. He is odd and not instantly accessible. He is fearless when expirementing with his sound and never afraid to do new things. No doubt he has alienated many fans over the years. Even my usual streak toward completionism could not follow him when he made "The Firstborn Is Dead". That experience swore me off his early and mid-eighties records despite my suspicion that purists swear by them (purists always swear by the early records of whoever it is that they like).
I'm not a purist, but I know what I like, and "Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!" is a good record. It is driven heavily by bass tracks, and innovative syncopation that reminded me of Tom Waits' later work. Throughout we are treated to Nick Cave's very unique phrasing and poetic talents. His voice is half-spoken, half-sung, and composed entirely of cool.
Compared to records preceeding it (such as "Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus" and "No More Shall We Part") it has a much heavier rock groove. I found myself putting it more in the category of his work with Grinderman. Fortunately, I love Grinderman, so I didn't mind the shift. But more on Grinderman when I roll it.
My enjoyment of this record was not always there and when I first got this record it didn't work for me. Likely this was because of the shift of styles and how comfortable I had become with his last few records. I should've known that amidst all his musical genius, Cave never wants you to feel comfortable. His songs are always at some level discordant, and designed to force your ear to remain active to both the arrangement and the lyrics, lest you miss something.
The title track starts us off, with a song that seems loosely inspired by the confusion that Lazarus would feel still walking the earth years after his resurrection. Cave further develops this disconnect with a God he seems to perceive as arbitary and whimsical, in the amazing "We Call Upon The Author." The lyrics to both songs are brilliant but lose so much without Cave's cadence and the music that they aren't worth reprinting here.
That said, Cave is a natural poet, and I'd be remiss to not share some of the better turns of phrase. Such as this one from "Hold On To Yourself":
"I turn on the radio
There's some cat on the saxophone
Laying down a litany of excuses.
"There's madhouse longing in my baby's eyes
She rubs the lamp between her thighs
And hopes the genie comes out singing."
Or from "Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)":
"I'm trying to tread careful, baby
You're as brittle as the wishbone of a bird."
I desperately wanted to lower the rating of this album to 3 stars, simply because of the presentation of the CD. The cover is garish, pointless, and festooned with at least four more exclamation points than are necessary. This is only the beginning.
The CD comes with an accompanying mini-book (the cover of which is that picture of Nick Cave above). The book is a bloated 54 pages and makes the CD fit ungainly on my shelf, yet all it holds is the lyrics to the songs, punctuated in the most ridiculous post-modern free form way possible.
Every appearance of the word 'and' is depicted with an ampersand. Not just the word 'and' either - wherever that letter combination appears (making the spelling of hand as 'h&'). Every occurance of 'you' is designated 'y/' and every appearance of either 'your' or 'you're' is 'yr'. And that's just the spelling - the line breaks and punctuation are equally ridiculous.
In my quotes above I've edited them for readability, because if I were to put them as seen in the book someone would call and demand I return my Degree in English Literature. At least I hope that is what would happen - it is a dark time for punctuation, after all.
However, try as I might to give this record a merely good designation, the truth is the music is excellent, and transcends any amount of bad packaging. I don't put this album on that often, but the Odyssey has reminded me to not always judge a book by its cover.
Best tracks: Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, Albert Goes West, We Call Upon The Author, Hold Onto Yourself, More News From Nowhere
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